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In United States patent law, an article of manufacture is one of the four principal categories of things that may be patented. The other three are a process , a machine, and a composition of matter. In United States patent law, that same terminology has been in use since the first patent act in 1790.
In In re Nuitjen, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said:
The Supreme Court has defined "manufacture" as "the production of articles for use from raw or prepared materials by giving to these materials new forms, qualities, properties, or combinations, whether by hand-labor or by machinery." Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303, 308. The term is used in the statute in its noun form, Bayer AG v. Housey Pharms., Inc., 340 F.3d 1367, 1373 , and therefore refers to "articles" resulting from the process of manufacture. The same dictionary the Supreme Court relied on for its definition of "manufacture" in turn defines "article" as "a particular substance or commodity: as, an article of merchandise; an article of clothing; salt is a necessary article." 1 Century Dictionary 326. These definitions address "articles" of "manufacture" as being tangible articles or commodities.
Examples of articles of manufacture are ceramics, cast metal articles, hammers, crowbars, chairs, shovels, gloves, shoes, envelopes and mouse-pads. Articles of manufacture may have parts, but any interaction among the parts is usually static.