Ruling
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger wrote the decision, and was joined by Potter Stewart, Harry Blackmun, William Rehnquist, and John Paul Stevens.
Burger wrote that the question before the court was a narrow one—the interpretation of 35 U.S.C. 101, which says:
- "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 therefore, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title."
He wrote that:
- We have cautioned that courts "should not read into the patent laws limitations and conditions which the legislature has not expressed." United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp, 289 U.S. 178 (1933).
Regarding the scope of the original legislation, he wrote:
- In choosing such expansive terms as "manufacture" and "composition of matter," modified by the comprehensive "any," Congress plainly contemplated that the patent laws would be given wide scope.
Finding that Congress had intended patentable subject matter to "include anything under the sun that is made by man," he concluded that:
- Judged in this light, respondent's micro-organism plainly qualifies as patentable subject matter. His claim is ... to a nonnaturally occurring manufacture or composition of matter—a product of human ingenuity.
Read more about this topic: Diamond V. Chakrabarty
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