Process
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 409 U.S. 63 - Gottschalk v. Benson · 1972Most cited · 842 citing opinions
patent law
A process is a mode of treatment of certain materials to produce a given result. It is an act, or a series of acts, performed upon the subject-matter to be transformed and reduced to a different state or thing.
How the Supreme Court has restated “Process”
Each Supreme Court definition of “Process,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “Process”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “Process” — 2,155 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1909–2001
- ORIGINAL
A process is a mode of treatment of certain materials to produce a given result. It is an act, or a series of acts, performed upon the subject-matter to be transformed and reduced to a different state or thing. If new and useful, it is just as patentable as is a piece of machinery. In the language of the patent law, it is an art.
in patent law
any means used by a court to acquire or exercise its jurisdiction over a person or over specific property," Black's Law Dictionary 1084 (5th ed. 1979), and is equated in criminal cases with a warrant, id., at 1085.) It is noteworthy that Kagama recognized the right of state laws to "operat[e] upon [non-Indians] found" within a reservation, but did not similarly limit to non-Indians or the property of non-Indians the scope of the process of state courts.