Composition of Matter
<p >The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Supreme_Court" title="United States Supreme Court" class="mw-redirect" >United States Supreme Court</a> has defined "composition of matter" to mean "all compositions of two or more substances and all composite articles, whether they be the results of chemical union, or of mechanical mixture, or whether they be gases, fluids, powders or solids."<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_matter#cite_note-2" >[2]</a></sup> That definition is problematic, however, because composite articles can be articles of manufacture—as in the case of a piece of plywood, a concrete sidewalk, a road, a fibreglass bathtub, a (kitchen) countertop, or a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flitch_beam" title="Flitch beam" >Flitch beam</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_matter#cite_note-3" >[3]</a></sup>
<i>Robinson on Patents</i> has defined "composition of matter" in these terms:</p>
<blockquote >
<p >A composition of matter is an instrument formed by the intermixture of two or more ingredients, and possessing properties which belong to none of these ingredients in their separate state. ...The intermixture of ingredients in a composition of matter may be produced by mechanical or chemical operations, and its result may be a compound substance resolvable into its constituent elements by mechanical processes, or a new substance which can be destroyed only by chemical analysis.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_matter#cite_note-4" >[4]</a></sup></p>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>