Appeal No. 2006-2240
Application No. 10/232,015
concrete and tangible results. Therefore, a signal does not fit within the definition of a
"machine."
A "manufacture" and a "composition of matter" are defined in Diamond v. Chakrabarty,
447 U.S. 303, 308, 206 USPQ 193, 196-97 (1980):
[T]his Court has read the term "manufacture" in accordance with its dictionary definition
to mean "the production of articles for use from raw or prepared materials by giving to
these materials new forms, qualities, properties, or combinations, whether by hand-labor
or by machinery." American Fruit Growers, Inc. v. Brogdex Co., 283 U.S. 1, 11 (1931).
Similarly, "composition of matter" has been construed consistent with common usage to
include "all compositions of two or more substances and ... all composite articles,
whether they be results of chemical union, or of mechanical mixture, or whether they be
gases, fluids, powders or solids." Shell Development Co. v. Watson, 149 F. Supp. 279,
280 (D.C. 1957) (citing 1 A. Deller, Walker on Patents § 14, p. 55 (1st ed. 1937).
[Parallel citations omitted.]
The signal is not composed of matter and is clearly not a "composition of matter."
A "manufacture" is the residual category for products. 1 Chisum, Patents § 1.02[3]
(2004) (citing W. Robinson, The Law of Patents for Useful Inventions 270 (1890)). If a signal
falls within any category of § 101, it must fall within this category. The definition of
"manufacture" from Diamond v. Chakrabarty requires a tangible article prepared from materials.
The other cases dealing with manufactures also require a tangible physical article. The CCPA
held in In re Hruby, 373 F.2d 997, 153 USPQ 61 (CCPA 1967) that there was no distinction
between the meaning of "manufacture" in § 101 and "article of manufacture" in § 171 for
designs. The issue in Hruby was whether that portion of a water fountain which is composed
entirely of water in motion was an article of manufacture. The CCPA relied on the analysis of
the term "manufacture" in Riter-Conley Mfg. Co. v. Aiken, 203 F. 699 (3d Cir.), cert. denied,
229 U.S. 617 (1913), a case involving a utility patent. The CCPA stated in Hruby:
The gist of it is, as one can determine from dictionaries, that a manufacture
is anything made "by the hands of man" from raw materials, whether literally by
hand or by machinery or by art.
373 F.2d at 1000, 153 USPQ at 65. The CCPA held that the fountain was made of the only
substance fountains can be made of--water--and determined that designs for water fountains
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