Class Notres 2/9/2011 (Fernando Rodriguez)

Diamond v. Diehr

• Basically deals with what constitutes statutory subject matter

Agreement Developed a new process for uncured rubber, that included a temperature measurement, it was qualified as a process The patent won, as in not really know if it was issued but it was agreed that it was a process and patentable

Second to last parragraph before II

You can appeal withing the patent office to the give above the examiner.

They were making a physical alteration to the rubber so that was good, important (usually Court Likes this)

Dissent

• Agree that you can get a patent on a computer program if they are part of something (a transformative process)
• However they do not think this case could be patentable
  • They decoupled the problem and realized that the only change that was insituted was the computer program to an otherwise known program

They liked the mental step process but you could not patent this as it is a mental process, used as a basis ffor their dissent (basically if you cant patent a mental processs you cant patent a computer program, which is just an expression of these mental process)

Kinda confusing because you cannot really decouple the claims in that manner

Important question is raised

Can algorithms be patented ?