Ex Parte TEDESCO et al - Page 9




          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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