Cite as: 534 U. S. 124 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
were the primary subjects of agricultural marketing and so it is not surprising that they were the specific focus of the PPA. See Fowler, supra, at 634-635; Kneen, Patent Plants Enrich Our World, National Geographic 357, 363 (1948).
Moreover, seed companies at the time could not point to genuinely new varieties and lacked the scientific knowledge to engage in formal breeding that would increase agricultural productivity. See Kloppenburg 77; Fowler, supra, at 633 ("Absent significant numbers of distinct new varieties being produced by seed companies, variety protection through something like a patent law would hardly have been considered a business necessity"). In short, there is simply no evidence, let alone the overwhelming evidence needed to establish repeal by implication, see Matsushita Elec. Industrial Co. v. Epstein, 516 U. S. 367, 381 (1996), that Congress, by specifically protecting asexually reproduced plants through the PPA, intended to preclude utility patent protection for sexually reproduced plants.9
Third, petitioners argue that in 1952 Congress would not have moved plants out of the utility patent provision and into § 161 if it had intended § 101 to allow for protection of plants. Brief for Petitioners 20. Petitioners again rely on
9 The dissent relies on United States v. Estate of Romani, 523 U. S. 517 (1998), for the proposition that "a later, more specific statute trumps an earlier, more general one." See post, at 156. Yet in Estate of Romani this purported rule was applied because the meaning of the earlier statute was "unresolved." 523 U. S., at 530. The Court noted that "despite the age of the statute, and despite the fact that it has been the subject of a great deal of litigation," its meaning had not been definitively established. Id., at 529. By contrast, the statutory terms "manufacture or composition of matter" were not similarly unresolved at the time the PPA was passed. In addition, these subject-matter terms have been interpreted broadly to evolve with developments in science and technology. See Chakrabarty, 447 U. S., at 315. Moreover, even in Estate of Romani, the Court considered that there was no "plain inconsistency" between the earlier and later statutes. 523 U. S., at 533.
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