134
Opinion of the Court
First, petitioners argue that plants were not covered by the general utility patent statute prior to 1930. Brief for Petitioners 19 ("If the patent laws before 1930 allowed patents on 'plants' then there would have been no reason for Congress to have passed the 1930 PPA . . ."). In advancing this argument, petitioners overlook the state of patent law and plant breeding at the time of the PPA's enactment. The Court in Chakrabarty explained the realities of patent law and plant breeding at the time the PPA was enacted: "Prior to 1930, two factors were thought to remove plants from patent protection. The first was the belief that plants, even those artificially bred, were products of nature for purposes of the patent law. . . . The second obstacle to patent protection for plants was the fact that plants were thought not amenable to the 'written description' requirement of the patent law." 447 U. S., at 311-312. Congress addressed these concerns with the 1930 PPA, which recognized that the work of a plant breeder was a patentable invention and relaxed the written description requirement. See §§ 1-2, 46 Stat. 376. The PPA thus gave patent protection to breeders who were previously unable to overcome the obstacles described in Chakrabarty.
This does not mean, however, that prior to 1930 plants could not have fallen within the subject matter of § 101. Rather, it illustrates only that in 1930 Congress believed that plants were not patentable under § 101, both because they were living things and because in practice they could not meet the stringent description requirement. Yet these premises were disproved over time. As this Court held in Chakrabarty, "the relevant distinction" for purposes of § 101 is not "between living and inanimate things, but between products of nature, whether living or not, and human-made inventions." 447 U. S., at 313. In addition, advances in biological knowledge and breeding expertise have allowed plant breeders to satisfy § 101's demanding description requirement.
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