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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 13–298
_________________
ALICE CORPORATION PTY. LTD, PETITIONER v. CLS
BANK INTERNATIONAL et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the federal circuit
[June 19, 2014]
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The patents at issue in
this case disclose a computer-implemented scheme for mitigating
“settlement risk” (i.e., the risk that only one party
to a financial transaction will pay what it owes) by using a
third-party intermediary. The question presented is whether these
claims are patent eligible under 35 U. S. C. §101,
or are instead drawn to a patent-ineligible abstract idea. We hold
that the claims at issue are drawn to the abstract idea of
intermediated settlement, and that merely requiring generic
computer implementation fails to transform that abstract idea into
a patent-eligible invention. We therefore affirm the judgment of
the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
I
A
Petitioner Alice
Corporation is the assignee of several patents that disclose
schemes to manage certain forms of financial risk. [
1 ] According to the specification largely
shared by the patents, the invention “enabl[es] the
management of risk relating to specified, yet unknown, future
events.” App. 248. The specification further explains that
the “invention relates to methods and apparatus, including
electrical computers and data processing systems applied to
financial matters and risk management.” Id., at 243.
The claims at issue
relate to a computerized scheme for mitigating “settlement
risk”—i.e., the risk that only one party to an
agreed-upon financial exchange will satisfy its obligation. In
particular, the claims are designed to facilitate the exchange of
financial obligations between two parties by using a computer
system as a third-party intermediary. Id., at 383–384. [
2 ] The intermediary creates
“shadow” credit and debit records (i.e., account
ledgers) that mirror the balances in the parties’ real-world
accounts at “exchange institutions” (e.g., banks). The
intermediary updates the shadow records in real time as
transactions are entered, allowing “only those transactions
for which the parties’ updated shadow records indicate
sufficient resources to satisfy their mutual obligations.”
717 F. 3d 1269, 1285 (CA Fed. 2013) (Lourie, J., concurring).
At the end of the day, the intermediary instructs the relevant
financial institutions to carry out the “permitted”
transactions in accordance with the updated shadow records, ibid.,
thus mitigating the risk that only one party will perform the
agreed-upon exchange.
In sum, the patents in
suit claim (1) the foregoing method for exchanging obligations (the
method claims), (2) a computer system configured to carry out the
method for exchanging obligations (the system claims), and (3) a
computer-readable medium containing program code for performing the
method of exchanging obligations (the media claims). All of the
claims are implemented using a computer; the system and media
claims expressly recite a computer, and the parties have stipulated
that the method claims require a computer as well.
B
Respondents CLS Bank
International and CLS Services Ltd. (together, CLS Bank) operate a
global network that facilitates currency transactions. In 2007, CLS
Bank filed suit against petitioner, seeking a declaratory judgment
that the claims at issue are invalid, unenforceable, or not
infringed. Petitioner counterclaimed, alleging infringement.
Following this Court’s decision in Bilski v. Kappos, 561
U. S. 593 (2010) , the parties filed cross-motions for summary
judgment on whether the asserted claims are eligible for patent
protection under 35 U. S. C. §101. The District
Court held that all of the claims are patent ineligible because
they are directed to the abstract idea of “employing a
neutral intermediary to facilitate simultaneous exchange of
obligations in order to minimize risk.” 768 F. Supp. 2d
221, 252 (DC 2011).
A divided panel of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed,
holding that it was not “manifestly evident” that
petitioner’s claims are directed to an abstract idea. 685
F. 3d 1341, 1352, 1356 (2012). The Federal Circuit granted
rehearing en banc, vacated the panel opinion, and affirmed the
judgment of the District Court in a one-paragraph per curiam
opinion. 717 F. 3d, at 1273. Seven of the ten participating
judges agreed that petitioner’s method and media claims are
patent ineligible. See id., at 1274 (Lourie, J., concurring); id.,
at 1312–1313 (Rader, C. J., concurring in part and
dissenting in part). With respect to petitioner’s system
claims, the en banc Federal Circuit affirmed the District
Court’s judgment by an equally divided vote. Id., at
1273.
Writing for a
five-member plurality, Judge Lourie concluded that all of the
claims at issue are patent ineligible. In the plurality’s
view, under this Court’s decision in Mayo Collaborative
Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 566 U. S. ___
(2012), a court must first “identif[y] the abstract idea
represented in the claim,” and then determine “whether
the balance of the claim adds ‘significantly
more.’ ” 717 F. 3d, at 1286. The plurality
concluded that petitioner’s claims “draw on the
abstract idea of reducing settlement risk by effecting trades
through a third-party intermediary,” and that the use of a
computer to maintain, adjust, and reconcile shadow accounts added
nothing of substance to that abstract idea. Ibid.
Chief Judge Rader
concurred in part and dissented in part. In a part of the opinion
joined only by Judge Moore, Chief Judge Rader agreed with the
plurality that petitioner’s method and media claims are drawn
to an abstract idea. Id., at 1312–1313. In a part of the
opinion joined by Judges Linn, Moore, and O’Malley, Chief
Judge Rader would have held that the system claims are patent
eligible because they involve computer “hardware” that
is “specifically programmed to solve a complex
problem.” Id., at 1307. Judge Moore wrote a separate opinion
dissenting in part, arguing that the system claims are patent
eligible. Id., at 1313–1314. Judge Newman filed an opinion
concurring in part and dissenting in part, arguing that all of
petitioner’s claims are patent eligible. Id., at 1327. Judges
Linn and O’Malley filed a separate dissenting opinion
reaching that same conclusion. Ibid.
We granted certiorari,
571 U. S. ___ (2013), and now affirm.
II
Section 101 of the
Patent Act defines the subject matter eligible for patent
protection. It provides:
“Whoever
invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine,
manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful
improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the
conditions and requirements of this title.” 35
U. S. C. §101.
“We have long held that this provision
contains an important implicit exception: Laws of nature, natural
phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable.”
Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 569
U. S. ___, ___ (2013) (slip op., at 11) (internal quotation
marks and brackets omitted). We have interpreted §101 and its
predecessors in light of this exception for more than 150 years.
Bilski, supra, at 601–602; see also O’Reilly v. Morse,
15 How. 62, 112–120 (1854); Le Roy v. Tatham, 14 How. 156,
174–175 (1853).
We have described the
concern that drives this exclusionary principle as one of
pre-emption. See, e.g., Bilski, supra, at 611–612 (upholding
the patent “would pre-empt use of this approach in all
fields, and would effectively grant a monopoly over an abstract
idea”). Laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas
are “ ‘ “the basic tools of scientific
and technological work.” ’ ” Myriad,
supra, at ___ (slip op., at 11). “[M]onopolization of those
tools through the grant of a patent might tend to impede innovation
more than it would tend to promote it,” thereby thwarting the
primary object of the patent laws. Mayo, supra, at ___ (slip op.,
at 2); see U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 8 (Congress
“shall have Power . . . To promote the Progress of
Science and useful Arts”). We have “repeatedly
emphasized this . . . concern that patent law not inhibit
further discovery by improperly tying up the future use of”
these building blocks of human ingenuity. Mayo, supra, at ___ (slip
op., at 16) (citing Morse, supra, at 113).
At the same time, we
tread carefully in construing this exclusionary principle lest it
swallow all of patent law. Mayo, 566 U. S., at ___ (slip op.,
at 2). At some level, “all inventions . . . embody,
use, reflect, rest upon, or apply laws of nature, natural
phenomena, or abstract ideas.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 2).
Thus, an invention is not rendered ineligible for patent simply
because it involves an abstract concept. See Diamond v. Diehr, 450
U. S. 175, 187 (1981) . “[A]pplication[s]” of such
concepts “ ‘to a new and useful
end,’ ” we have said, remain eligible for patent
protection. Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U. S. 63, 67 (1972)
.
Accordingly, in
applying the §101 exception, we must distinguish between
patents that claim the “ ‘buildin[g]
block[s]’ ” of human ingenuity and those that
integrate the building blocks into something more, Mayo, 566
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 20), thereby
“transform[ing]” them into a patent-eligible invention,
id., at ___ (slip op., at 3). The former “would risk
disproportionately tying up the use of the underlying” ideas,
id., at ___ (slip op., at 4), and are therefore ineligible for
patent protection. The latter pose no comparable risk of
pre-emption, and therefore remain eligible for the monopoly granted
under our patent laws.
III
In Mayo Collaborative
Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 566 U. S. ___
(2012), we set forth a framework for distinguishing patents that
claim laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas from
those that claim patent-eligible applications of those concepts.
First, we determine whether the claims at issue are directed to one
of those patent-ineligible concepts. Id., at ___ (slip op., at 8).
If so, we then ask, “[w]hat else is there in the claims
before us?” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 9). To answer that
question, we consider the elements of each claim both individually
and “as an ordered combination” to determine whether
the additional elements “transform the nature of the
claim” into a patent-eligible application. Id., at ___ (slip
op., at 10, 9). We have described step two of this analysis as a
search for an “ ‘inventive
concept’ ”—i.e., an element or combination
of elements that is “sufficient to ensure that the patent in
practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the
[ineligible concept] itself.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 3). [
3 ]
A
We must first
determine whether the claims at issue are directed to a
patent-ineligible concept. We conclude that they are: These claims
are drawn to the abstract idea of intermediated settlement.
The “abstract
ideas” category embodies “the longstanding rule that
‘[a]n idea of itself is not patentable.’ ”
Benson, supra, at 67 (quoting Rubber-Tip Pencil Co. v. Howard, 20
Wall. 498, 507 (1874)); see also Le Roy, supra, at 175 (“A
principle, in the abstract, is a fundamental truth; an original
cause; a motive; these cannot be patented, as no one can claim in
either of them an exclusive right”). In Benson, for example,
this Court rejected as ineligible patent claims involving an
algorithm for converting binary-coded decimal numerals into pure
binary form, holding that the claimed patent was “in
practical effect . . . a pat- ent on the algorithm
itself.” 409 U. S., at 71–72. And in Parker v.
Flook, 437 U. S. 584 –595 (1978), we held that a
mathematical formula for computing “alarm limits” in a
catalytic conversion process was also a patent-ineligible abstract
idea.
We most recently
addressed the category of abstract ideas in Bilski v. Kappos, 561
U. S. 593 (2010) . The claims at issue in Bilski described a
method for hedging against the financial risk of price
fluctuations. Claim 1 recited a series of steps for hedging risk,
including: (1) initiating a series of financial transactions
between providers and consumers of a commodity; (2) identifying
market participants that have a counterrisk for the same commodity;
and (3) initiating a series of transactions between those market
participants and the commodity provider to balance the risk
position of the first series of consumer transactions. Id., at 599.
Claim 4 “pu[t] the concept articulated in claim 1 into a
simple mathematical formula.” Ibid. The remaining claims were
drawn to examples of hedging in commodities and energy markets.
“[A]ll members of
the Court agree[d]” that the patent at issue in Bilski
claimed an “abstract idea.” Id., at 609; see also id.,
at 619 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment). Specifically, the
claims described “the basic concept of hedging, or protecting
against risk.” Id., at 611. The Court explained that
“ ‘[h]edging is a fundamental economic practice
long prevalent in our system of commerce and taught in any
introductory finance class.’ ” Ibid. “The
concept of hedging” as recited by the claims in suit was
therefore a patent-ineligible “abstract idea, just like the
algorithms at issue in Benson and Flook.” Ibid.
It follows from our
prior cases, and Bilski in particular, that the claims at issue
here are directed to an abstract idea. Petitioner’s claims
involve a method of exchanging financial obligations between two
parties using a third-party intermediary to mitigate settlement
risk. The intermediary creates and updates “shadow”
records to reflect the value of each party’s actual accounts
held at “exchange institutions,” thereby permitting
only those transactions for which the parties have sufficient
resources. At the end of each day, the intermediary issues
irrevocable instructions to the exchange institutions to carry out
the permitted transactions.
On their face, the
claims before us are drawn to the concept of intermediated
settlement, i.e., the use of a third party to mitigate settlement
risk. Like the risk hedging in Bilski, the concept of intermediated
settlement is “ ‘a fundamental economic practice
long prevalent in our system of commerce.’ ”
Ibid.; see, e.g., Emery, Speculation on the Stock and Produce
Exchanges of the United States, in 7 Studies in History, Economics
and Public Law 283, 346–356 (1896) (discussing the use of a
“clearing-house” as an intermediary to reduce
settlement risk). The use of a third-party intermediary (or
“clearing house”) is also a building block of the
modern economy. See, e.g., Yadav, The Problematic Case of
Clearinghouses in Complex Markets, 101 Geo. L. J. 387,
406–412 (2013); J. Hull, Risk Management and Financial
Institutions 103–104 (3d ed. 2012). Thus, intermediated
settlement, like hedging, is an “abstract idea” beyond
the scope of §101.
Petitioner acknowledges
that its claims describe intermediated settlement, see Brief for
Petitioner 4, but rejects the conclusion that its claims recite an
“abstract idea.” Drawing on the presence of
mathematical formulas in some of our abstract-ideas precedents,
petitioner contends that the abstract-ideas category is confined to
“preexisting, fundamental truth[s]” that
“ ‘exis[t ] in principle apart from any human
action.’ ” Id., at 23, 26 (quoting Mayo, 566
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 8)).
Bilski belies
petitioner’s assertion. The concept of risk hedging we
identified as an abstract idea in that case cannot be described as
a “preexisting, fundamental truth.” The patent in
Bilski simply involved a “series of steps instructing how to
hedge risk.” 561 U. S., at 599. Al-though hedging is a
longstanding commercial practice, id., at 599, it is a method of
organizing human activity, not a “truth” about the
natural world “ ‘that has always
existed,’ ” Brief for Petitioner 22 (quoting
Flook, supra, at 593, n. 15). One of the claims in Bilski
reduced hedging to a mathematical formula, but the Court did not
assign any special significance to that fact, much less the sort of
talismanic significance petitioner claims. Instead, the Court
grounded its conclusion that all of the claims at issue were
abstract ideas in the understanding that risk hedging was a
“ ‘fundamental economic
practice.’ ” 561 U. S., at 611.
In any event, we need
not labor to delimit the precise contours of the “abstract
ideas” category in this case. It is enough to recognize that
there is no meaningful distinction between the concept of risk
hedging in Bilski and the concept of intermediated settlement at
issue here. Both are squarely within the realm of “abstract
ideas” as we have used that term.
B
Because the claims at
issue are directed to the abstract idea of intermediated
settlement, we turn to the second step in Mayo’s framework.
We conclude that the method claims, which merely require generic
computer implementation, fail to transform that abstract idea into
a patent-eligible invention.
1
At Mayo step two, we
must examine the elements of the claim to determine whether it
contains an “ ‘inventive
concept’ ” sufficient to “transform”
the claimed abstract idea into a patent-eligible application. 566
U. S., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 3, 11). A claim that recites
an abstract idea must include “additional features” to
ensure “that the [claim] is more than a drafting effort
designed to monopolize the [abstract idea].” Id., at ___
(slip op., at 8–9). Mayo made clear that transformation into
a patent-eligible application requires “more than simply
stat[ing] the [abstract idea] while adding the words ‘apply
it.’ ” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 3).
Mayo itself is
instructive. The patents at issue in Mayo claimed a method for
measuring metabolites in the bloodstream in order to calibrate the
appropriate dosage of thiopurine drugs in the treatment of
autoimmune dis- eases. Id., at ___ (slip op., at 4–6). The
respondent in that case contended that the claimed method was a
patent-eligible application of natural laws that describe the
relationship between the concentration of certain metabolites and
the likelihood that the drug dosage will be harmful or ineffective.
But methods for determining metabolite levels were already
“well known in the art,” and the process at issue
amounted to “nothing significantly more than an instruction
to doctors to apply the applicable laws when treating their
patients.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 10). “Simply
appending conventional steps, specified at a high level of
generality,” was not “enough” to supply an
“ ‘inventive concept.’ ” Id., at
___, ___, ___ (slip op., at 14, 8, 3).
The introduction of a
computer into the claims does not alter the analysis at Mayo step
two. In Benson, for example, we considered a patent that claimed an
algorithm implemented on “a general-purpose digital
computer.” 409 U. S., at 64. Because the algorithm was
an abstract idea, see supra, at 8, the claim had to supply a
“ ‘new and use-ful’ ” application
of the idea in order to be patent eligible. 409 U. S., at 67.
But the computer implementation did not supply the necessary
inventive concept; the process could be “carried out in
existing computers long in use.” Ibid. We accordingly
“held that simply implementing a mathematical principle on a
physical machine, namely a computer, [i]s not a patentable
application of that principle.” Mayo, supra, at ___ (slip
op., at 16) (citing Benson, supra, at 64).
Flook is to the same
effect. There, we examined a computerized method for using a
mathematical formula to adjust alarm limits for certain operating
conditions (e.g., temperature and pressure) that could signal
inefficiency or danger in a catalytic conversion process. 437
U. S., at 585–586. Once again, the formula itself was an
abstract idea, see supra, at 8, and the computer implementation was
purely conventional. 437 U. S., at 594 (noting that the
“use of computers for ‘automatic
monitoring-alarming’ ” was “well
known”). In holding that the process was patent ineligible,
we rejected the argument that “implement[ing] a principle in
some specific fashion” will “automatically fal[l]
within the patentable subject matter of §101.” Id., at
593. Thus, “Flook stands for the proposition that the
prohibition against patenting abstract ideas cannot be circumvented
by attempting to limit the use of [the idea] to a particular
technological environment.” Bilski, 561 U. S., at
610–611 (internal quotation marks omitted).
In Diehr, 450
U. S. 175 , by contrast, we held that a computer-implemented
process for curing rubber was patent eligible, but not because it
involved a computer. The claim employed a “well-known”
mathematical equation, but it used that equation in a process
designed to solve a technological problem in “conventional
industry practice.” Id., at 177, 178. The invention in Diehr
used a “thermocouple” to record constant temperature
measure-ments inside the rubber mold—something “the
industry ha[d] not been able to obtain.” Id., at 178, and
n. 3. The temperature measurements were then fed into a
computer, which repeatedly recalculated the remaining cure time by
using the mathematical equation. Id., at 178–179. These
additional steps, we recently explained, “transformed the
process into an inventive application of the formula.” Mayo,
supra, at ___ (slip op., at 12). In other words, the claims in
Diehr were patent eligible because they improved an existing
technological process, not because they were implemented on a
computer.
These cases demonstrate
that the mere recitation of a generic computer cannot transform a
patent-ineligible abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.
Stating an abstract idea “while adding the words ‘apply
it’ ” is not enough for patent eligibility. Mayo,
supra, at ___ (slip op., at 3). Nor is limiting the use of an
abstract idea “ ‘to a particular technological
environment.’ ” Bilski, supra, at 610–611.
Stating an abstract idea while adding the words “apply it
with a computer” simply combines those two steps, with the
same deficient result. Thus, if a patent’s recitation of a
computer amounts to a mere instruction to “implemen[t]”
an abstract idea “on . . . a computer,” Mayo,
supra, at ___ (slip op., at 16), that addition cannot impart patent
eligibility. This conclusion accords with the pre-emption concern
that undergirds our §101 jurisprudence. Given the ubiquity of
computers, see 717 F. 3d, at 1286 (Lourie, J., concurring),
wholly generic computer implementation is not generally the sort of
“additional featur[e]” that provides any
“practical assurance that the process is more than a drafting
effort designed to monopolize the [abstract idea] itself.”
Mayo, 566 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 8–9).
The fact that a
computer “necessarily exist[s] in the physical, rather than
purely conceptual, realm,” Brief for Petitioner 39, is beside
the point. There is no dispute that a computer is a tangible system
(in §101 terms, a “machine”), or that many
computer-implemented claims are formally addressed to
patent-eligible subject matter. But if that were the end of the
§101 inquiry, an applicant could claim any principle of the
physical or social sciences by reciting a computer system
configured to implement the relevant concept. Such a result would
make the determination of patent eligibility “depend simply
on the draftsman’s art,” Flook, supra, at 593, thereby
eviscerating the rule that “ ‘[l]aws of nature,
natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not
patentable,’ ” Myriad, 569 U. S., at ___
(slip op., at 11).
2
The representative
method claim in this case recites the following steps: (1)
“creating” shadow records for each counterparty to a
transaction; (2) “obtaining” start-of-day balances
based on the parties’ real-world accounts at exchange
institutions; (3) “adjusting” the shadow records as
transactions are entered, allowing only those transactions for
which the parties have sufficient resources; and (4) issuing
irrevocable end-of-day instructions to the exchange institutions to
carry out the permitted transactions. See n. 2, supra.
Petitioner principally contends that the claims are patent eligible
because these steps “require a substantial and meaningful
role for the computer.” Brief for Petitioner 48. As
stipulated, the claimed method requires the use of a computer to
create electronic records, track multiple transactions, and issue
simultaneous instructions; in other words, “[t]he computer is
itself the intermediary.” Ibid. (emphasis deleted).
In light of the
foregoing, see supra, at 11–14, the relevant question is
whether the claims here do more than simply instruct the
practitioner to implement the abstract idea of intermediated
settlement on a generic computer. They do not.
Taking the claim
elements separately, the function performed by the computer at each
step of the process is “[p]urely conventional.” Mayo,
supra, at ___ (slip op., at 10) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Using a computer to create and maintain “shadow”
accounts amounts to electronic recordkeeping—one of the most
basic functions of a computer. See, e.g., Benson, 409 U. S.,
at 65 (noting that a computer “operates . . . upon
both new and previously stored data”). The same is true with
respect to the use of a computer to obtain data, adjust account
balances, and issue automated instructions; all of these computer
functions are “well-understood, routine, conventional
activit[ies]” previously known to the industry. Mayo, 566
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4). In short, each step does no
more than require a generic computer to perform generic computer
functions.
Considered “as an
ordered combination,” the computer components of
petitioner’s method “ad[d] nothing . . . that
is not already present when the steps are considered
separately.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 10). Viewed as a
whole, petitioner’s method claims simply recite the concept
of intermediated settlement as performed by a generic computer. See
717 F. 3d, at 1286 (Lourie, J., concurring) (noting that the
representative method claim “lacks any express language to
define the computer’s participation”). The method
claims do not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of
the computer itself. See ibid. (“There is no specific or
limiting recitation of . . . improved computer technology
. . .”); Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae
28–30. Nor do they effect an improvement in any other
technology or technical field. See, e.g., Diehr, 450 U. S., at
177–178. Instead, the claims at issue amount to
“nothing significantly more” than an instruction to
apply the abstract idea of intermediated settlement using some
unspecified, generic computer. Mayo, 566 U. S., at ___ (slip
op., at 10). Under our precedents, that is not “enough”
to transform an abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.
Id., at ___ (slip op., at 8).
C
Petitioner’s
claims to a computer system and a computer-readable medium fail for
substantially the same rea- sons. Petitioner conceded below that
its media claims rise or fall with its method claims. En Banc
Response Brief for Defendant-Appellant in No. 11–1301 (CA
Fed.) p. 50, n. 3. As to its system claims, petitioner
emphasizes that those claims recite “specific hardware”
configured to perform “specific computerized
functions.” Brief for Petitioner 53. But what petitioner
characterizes as specific hardware—a “data processing
system” with a “communications controller” and
“data storage unit,” for example, see App. 954, 958,
1257—is purely functional and generic. Nearly every computer
will include a “communications controller” and
“data storage unit” capable of performing the basic
calculation, storage, and transmission functions required by the
method claims. See 717 F. 3d, at 1290 (Lourie, J.,
concurring). As a result, none of the hardware recited by the
system claims “offers a meaningful limitation beyond
generally linking ‘the use of the [method] to a particular
technological environment,’ that is, implementation via
computers.” Id., at 1291 (quoting Bilski, 561 U. S., at
610–611).
Put another way, the
system claims are no different from the method claims in substance.
The method claims recite the abstract idea implemented on a generic
computer; the system claims recite a handful of generic computer
components configured to implement the same idea. This Court has
long “warn[ed] . . . against” interpreting
§101 “in ways that make patent eligibility ‘depend
simply on the draftsman’s art.’ ” Mayo,
supra, at ___ (slip op., at 3) (quoting Flook, 437 U. S., at
593); see id., at 590 (“The concept of patentable subject
matter under §101 is not ‘like a nose of wax which may
be turned and twisted in any direction
. . .’ ”). Holding that the system
claims are patent eligible would have exactly that result.
Because
petitioner’s system and media claims add nothing of substance
to the underlying abstract idea, we hold that they too are patent
ineligible under §101.
* * *
For the foregoing
reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Federal
Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
