Appeal No. 2004-0403
Application 09/100,684
definition. However, not every process in the dictionary sense
is a "process" under §§ 100(b) and 101 within the "useful arts"
("technological arts"). See Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584, 588
n.9, 198 USPQ 193, 196 n.9 (1978) ("The statutory definition of
'process' is broad.... An argument can be made, however, that
this Court has only recognized a process as within the statutory
definition when it either was tied to a particular apparatus or
operated to change materials to a 'different state or thing.'").
Section 100(b) of Title 35 U.S.C. defines "process" to mean
"process, art or method, and includes a new use of a known
process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, or
material." The definition of "process" to mean "process, art or
method" makes it clear that the terms are synonymous.
See S. Rep. No. 1979, reprinted in 1952 U.S. Code Cong. & Admin.
News at 2409-10. "When Congress approved the addition of the
term 'process' to the categories of patentable subject matter in
1952, it incorporated the definition of 'process' that had
evolved in the courts" (footnotes omitted), In re Schrader,
22 F.3d 290, 295, 30 UPSQ2d 1455, 1459 (Fed. Cir. 1994), which
included this definition from Cochrane v. Deener, 94 U.S. 780,
788 (1877): "A process is . . . an act, or series of acts,
performed upon the subject matter to be transformed and reduced
to a different state or thing." The transformation definition
has frequently been misunderstood to require transformation of an
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