Diamond v. Chakrabarty

Citation: Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303 (1980).

The Supreme Court held that a live, human-made microorganism was patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. In reaching this decision, the Court noted that the Committee Reports accompanying the 1952 Patent Act “inform us that Congress intended statutory subject matter to ‘include anything under the sun that is made by man.’”

The description of patentable subject matter as “anything under the sun that is made by man” conveyed a broad sense of the potential scope of patents.