"In 1981, the Supreme Court stated that "a claim drawn to subject matter otherwise statutory does not become nonstatutory simply because it uses a mathematical formula, computer program, or digital computer" and a claim is patentable if it contains "a mathematical formula [and] implements or applies the formula in a structure or process which, when considered as a whole, is performing a function which the patent laws were designed to protect".Due to different treatment of federal patent rights in different parts of the country, in 1982 the U.S. Congress created a new court (the Federal Circuit) to hear patent cases.