Patents for Protection, page-4

I’m anything but a patent expert caredes and indeed I find the language of those things to be quite impenetrable. However, I’ll advance this uneducated thought/question:

I can absolutely understand that a brilliant new device can and should be protected by a patent to reward the inventor for whatever is the prescribed period of time. What I don’t know (and there is lots I don’t know) is whether the process of producing that brilliant device can be similarly protected by patent law. The process certainly qualifies as intellectual property IMO. I also think that someone’s knowledge of the process doesn’t confer any rights to produce the device. But is the process itself protected?