1 (Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2009 Syllabus NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as isbeing done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has beenprepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus BILSKI ET AL. v. KAPPOS, UNDER SECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND DIRECTOR, PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT No. 08–964. Argued November 9, 2009—Decided June 28, 2010 Petitioners’ patent application seeks protection for a claimed invention that explains how commodities buyers and sellers in the energy mar-ket can protect, or hedge, against the risk of price changes. The key claims are claim 1, which describes a series of steps instructing how to hedge risk, and claim 4, which places the claim 1 concept into a simple mathematical formula. The remaining claims explain how claims 1 and 4 can be applied to allow energy suppliers and consum-ers to minimize the risks resulting from fluctuations in market de-mand. The patent examiner rejected the application on the groundsthat the invention is not implemented on a specific apparatus, merely manipulates an abstract idea, and solves a purely mathematical problem. The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences agreed and affirmed. The Federal Circuit, in turn, affirmed. The en banc court rejected its prior test for determining whether a claimed invention was a patentable “process” under Patent Act, 35 U. S. C. §101—i.e., whether the invention produced a “useful, concrete, and tangible re-sult,” see, e.g., State Street Bank & Trust Co v. Signature Financial Group, Inc., 149 F. 3d 1368, 1373—holding instead that a claimedprocess is patent eligible if: (1) it is tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or (2) it transforms a particular article into a differentstate or thing. Concluding that this “machine-or-transformation test”is the sole test for determining patent eligibility of a “process” under §101, the court applied the test and held that the application was notpatent eligible. Held: The judgment is affirmed.2 BILSKI v. KAPPOS Syllabus 545 F. 3d 943, affirmed. JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court, except as toParts II–B–2 and II–C–2, concluding that petitioners’ claimed inven-tion is not patent eligible. Pp. 4–8, 10–11, 12–16. (a) Section 101 specifies four independent categories of inventionsor discoveries that are patent eligible: “process[es],” “machin[es],”“manufactur[es],” and “composition[s] of matter.” “In choosing suchexpansive terms, . . . Congress plainly contemplated that the patentlaws would be given wide scope,” Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U. S. 303, 308, in order to ensure that “ ‘ingenuity should receive a liberal encouragement,’ ” id., at 308–309. This Court’s precedents providethree specific exceptions to §101’s broad principles: “laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas.” Id., at 309. While not re-quired by the statutory text, these exceptions are consistent with the notion that a patentable process must be “new and useful.” And, in any case, the exceptions have defined the statute’s reach as a matterof statutory stare decisis going back 150 years. See Le Roy v. Tatham, 14 How. 156, 174. The §101 eligibility inquiry is only a threshold test. Even if a claimed invention qualifies in one of thefour categories, it must also satisfy “the conditions and requirements of this title,” §101(a), including novelty, see §102, nonobviousness, see§103, and a full and particular description, see §112. The invention at issue is claimed to be a “process,” which §100(b) defines as a “proc-ess, art or method, and includes a new use of a known process, ma-chine, manufacture, composition of matter, or material.” Pp. 4–5.(b) The machine-or-transformation test is not the sole test for pat-ent eligibility under §101. The Court’s precedents establish that al-though that test may be a useful and important clue or investigativetool, it is not the sole test for deciding whether an invention is a pat-ent-eligible “process” under §101. In holding to the contrary, the Federal Circuit violated two principles of statutory interpretation:Courts “ ‘should not read into the patent laws limitations and condi-tions which the legislature has not expressed,’ ” Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U. S. 175, 182, and, “[u]nless otherwise defined, ‘words will be in-terpreted as taking their ordinary, contemporary, common mean-ing,’ ” ibid. The Court is unaware of any ordinary, contemporary, common meaning of “process” that would require it to be tied to amachine or the transformation of an article. Respondent Patent Di-rector urges the Court to read §101’s other three patentable catego-ries as confining “process” to a machine or transformation. However, the doctrine of noscitur a sociis is inapplicable here, for §100(b) al-ready explicitly defines “process,” see Burgess v. United States, 553 U. S. 124, 130, and nothing about the section’s inclusion of those other categories suggests that a “process” must be tied to one of them.3 Cite as: 561 U. S. ____ (2010) Syllabus Finally, the Federal Circuit incorrectly concluded that this Court hasendorsed the machine-or-transformation test as the exclusive test. Recent authorities show that the test was never intended to be ex-haustive or exclusive. See, e.g., Parker v. Flook, 437 U. S. 584, 588, n. 9. Pp. 5–8.(c) Section 101 similarly precludes a reading of the term “process” that would categorically exclude business methods. The term “method” within §100(b)’s “process” definition, at least as a textualmatter and before other consulting other Patent Act limitations andthis Court’s precedents, may include at least some methods of doingbusiness. The Court is unaware of any argument that the “ordinary,contemporary, common meaning,” Diehr, supra, at 182, of “method” excludes business methods. Nor is it clear what a business method exception would sweep in and whether it would exclude technologiesfor conducting a business more efficiently. The categorical
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