Supreme Court Requests Solicitor General's Views on Patentable Subject Matter

Also on February 28, 2005, after five conferencesin Laboratory Corporation of America v. Metabolite Laboratories, the Supreme Court asked the Solicitor General to file a brief expressing the views of the United States on the following question:

Respondent's patent claims a method for detecting a form of vitamin B deficiency, which focuses upon a correlation in the human body between elevated levels of certain amino acids and deficient levels of vitamin B. The method consists of the following: First, measure the level of the relevant amino acids using any device, whether the device is, or is not, patented; second, notice whether the amino acid level is elevated and, if so, conclude that a vitamin B deficiency exists. Is the patent invalid because one cannot patent "laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas"? Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 185 (1981).