[ILLOGICAL ASSUMPTION] Parker v. Flook (437 U.S. 584, 1978 Jun 22)
Decision Parameters
- Case: [ILLOGICAL ASSUMPTION] Parker v. Flook
- Type:
- Date: 1978 Jun 22
- Code: 437 U.S. 584
- Court: Supreme Court
- Vote: 6-3
- URL: caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=437&invol=584
- Patent:
Decisions It Cites
-
Le Roy v. Tatham [55 U.S. 14, 1852]
O'Reilly v. Morse [56 U.S. 15, 1853]
Tilghman v. Proctor [102 U.S. 707, 1880]
Mackay Radio v. Radio Corporation [306 U.S. 86, 1939]
Funk Brothers Seed v. Kalo Inoculant, [333 U.S. 127, 1948]
Gottschalk v. Benson [409 U.S. 63, 1972]
Decisions That Cite It
-
Diamond v. Chakrabarty [447 U.S. 303, 1980]
Diamond v. Diehr [450 U.S. 175, 1981]
Bilski v. Kappos [561 U.S. 593, 2010]
Mayo Collaborative v. Prometheus Laboratories [560 U.S. ___, 2012]
Rules & Quotes
[ILLOGICAL ASSUMPTION] {1} Our approach to respondent's application is, however, not at all inconsistent with the view that a patent claim must be considered as a whole. Respondent's process is unpatentable under 101, not because it contains a mathematical algorithm as one component, but because once that algorithm is assumed to be within the prior art, the application, considered as a whole, contains no patentable invention. Even though a phenomenon of nature or mathematical formula may be well known, an inventive application of the principle may be patented. Conversely, the discovery of such a phenomenon cannot support a patent unless there is some other inventive concept in its application. ... Respondent's application simply provides a new and presumably better method for calculating alarm limit values. If we assume that that method was also known, as we must under the reasoning in Morse, then respondent's claim is, in effect, comparable to a claim that the formula 2(pi)r can be usefully applied in determining the circumference of a wheel.[ILLOGICAL ASSUMPTION] The Supreme Court has no Constitutional authority, is expressing no intent of Congress, and is completely inconsistent with science and engineering, when it introduced the contradiction that "[an] algorithm is assumed to be within the prior art". This assumption is illogical, that something novel is not-novel, and this part of Parker v. Flook no longer should be a precedent for any decision.