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Supreme Court of the United States
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June 22, 1978
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Parker, acting commissioner of patents and trademarks v Flook, certiorari to the court of customs and patent appeals
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437 US 584
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Diamond V Diehr , Diamond V Chakrabarty
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A mathematical algorithm is not patentable if its application is not novel
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Warren E Burger
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Justices Brennan , Stewart , White , Marshall , Blackmun , Powell , Rehnquist and Stevens
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Justice Stevens
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Justices Brennan , White , Marshall , Blackmun and Powell
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Justice Stewart
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101 of the Patent Act
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'', was a
United States Supreme Court case that ruled that a mathematical algorithm isn't
Patent able if its application itself isn't novel. The case was argued on
April 25 ,
1978 and was decided
June 22 , 1978.
The case revolves around a patent for a "''Method for Updating Alarm Limits''". These limits are numbers between which a
Catalytic Converter is operating normally. When the values leave this range an alarm is sounded. Flook's method was identical to previous systems except for the mathematical algorithm. In
Gottschalk V. Benson , the court ruled that the discovery of a new formula is not patentable. This case differed because it included an application for the formula. Since the only difference between the patented system and the
Prior Art is the mathematics the patent is effectively just on the equation. The
Patent Examiner rejected the patent along that line of reasoning. When the decision was appealed, the
Board Of Appeals Of The Patent And Trademark Office sustained the examiner's rejection. Next, the
Court Of Customs And Patent Appeals reversed the lower court's decision saying that the patent only claimed the right to the equation in the context of the catalytic chemical conversion of hydrocarbons. Finally, the Acting Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks filed a petition for a
Writ Of Certiorari to the Supreme Court.
The law which is applicable to this case is section 101 of the Patent Act. If Flook's patent can meet the definition of a "process" under that law then it is patentable. The opinion decided instead that the patent's mathematics was instead a "principle" or a "law of nature" and thus is not patentable (see
Le Roy V. Tatham ). In the end, the court ruled that the patent as a whole was not patentable because the process which involves the mathematical principle is not novel. The court did not agree with Flook's assertion that the existence of a "post-solution activity" made the formula patentable. The majority opinion said of this,
"A competent draftsman could attach some form of post-solution activity to almost any mathematical formula; the Pythagorean Theorem would not have been patentable, or partially patentable, because a patent application contained a final step indicating that the formula, when solved, could be usefully applied to existing Surveying techniques."
The court moderated that assertion by agreeing that not all patents involving formulas are unpatentable by saying, "Yet it is equally clear that a process is not unpatentable simply because it contains a law of nature or a mathematical algorithm."
