Gottschalk v. Benson
Case Date: 07/22/1972
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Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63 (1972) was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a process claim directed to a numerical algorithm, as such, was not patentable because "the patent would wholly pre-empt the mathematical formula and in practical effect would be a patent on the algorithm itself." That would be tantamount to allowing a patent on an abstract idea, contrary to precedent dating back to the middle of the Nineteenth Century. The Court added "it is said that the decision precludes a patent for any program servicing a computer. We do not so hold." The case was argued on October 16, 1972 and was decided November 20, 1972.
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