Diamond v. Diehr
Supreme Court of the United States Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...
Argued October 14, 1980 Decided March 3, 1981
Full case name: DIAMOND, COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS AND TRADEMARKS v. DIEHR ET AL. Citations: 450 U.S. 175 (1981) Prior history: Subsequent history:
Holding
A machine controlled by a computer program was patentable.
Court membership
Justices: Rehnquist, Stewart, White, Powell, Stevens, Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun.
Case opinions
Plurality by: Rehnquist Joined by: Burger, Stewart, White, Powell Dissent by: Stevens Joined by: Blackmun, Brennan, Marshall
Laws applied
35 U.S.C. 101

Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175 (1981)^[1], was a U.S. Supreme Court decision which held that a machine controlled by a computer program was patentable. This decision did not make a computer program, by itself, patentable. Court citation is a standard system used in common law countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ... 1981 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States... Wind turbines A machine is any mechanical or organic device that transmits or modifies energy to perform or assist in the performance of tasks. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Background

The inventors, respondents, filed a patent application for a "process for molding raw, uncured synthetic rubber into cured precision products." The process of perfectly curing the synthetic rubber depends on a number of factors including time, temperature and thickness of the mold. Using the Arrhenius equation, ln v=CZ+x, it is possible to calculate exactly when to open the press and to remove the cured, molded rubber. The problem was that there was, at the time, no way to obtain an accurate measure of the temperature without opening the press making the use of the equation impossible. An inventor is a person who creates new inventions, typically technical devices such as mechanical, electrical or software devices or methods. ... In Common law, a defendant is any person who is required to answer the complaint of a plaintiff in a civil suit or any person who has been named in a criminal information or criminal complaint and stands accused of violating a criminal statute. ... A patent application is a request filed before a patent office in which an applicant applies for a patent for an invention. ... Process (lat. ... Synthetic rubber is a type of artificially-made polymer material which acts as an elastomer. ... 8:17 am, August 6, 1945, Japanese time. ... Temperature is the physical property of a system which underlies the common notions of hot and cold; the material with the higher temperature is said to be hotter. ... Moldy cream cheese Molds (British English: moulds) are various fungi that cover surfaces as fluffy mycelium and usually produce masses of asexual, sometimes sexual spores. ... Svante August Arrhenius (February 19, 1859 – October 2, 1927) was a Swedish chemist and one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry. ...

The invention solved this problem by constantly checking the temperature, and feeding all the values of the Arrhenius equation into a computer. When the calculated time equals the actual time, the machine opens the press automatically.

The patent clerk rejected this invention as unpatentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101. The clerk argued that the steps performed by the computer were unpatentable as a computer program under Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63 (1972). The Patent and Trademark Office Board of Appeals affirmed the rejection. The Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, the predecessor to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, reversed noting that an otherwise patentable invention does not become unpatentable simply because a computer is involved. A patent clerk or patent examiner is an employee, usually a civil servant, working within a patent office and whose work is to examine patent applications as to whether they deserve a patent. ... A computer is a device or machine for making calculations or controlling operations that are expressible in numerical or logical terms. ...

The U.S. Supreme Court granted the petition for certiorari by the Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks to resolve this question. Certiorari is a legal term in Roman, English and American law referring to a type of writ seeking judicial review. ...

The opinion

The court held that an invention which implements or uses a mathematical formula is different than an invention which claims the formula in the abstract. Thus, when the invention as a whole meets the requirements of patentability, the invention satisfies the patentable subject matter requirement. A formula is a concise way of expressing information symbolically (as in a mathematical or chemical formula) or a general relationship between quantities. ...

The holding

The reversal of the patent rejection was affirmed.

Notes

1. ^  Diamond v. Diehr