A positive resist material contains a base polymer containing: a repeating unit having two carboxyl groups whose hydrogen atoms are substituted with two tertiary carbon atoms each bonded to a double bond or triple bond; and a repeating unit having an acid generator shown by any of the following formulae (b1) to (b3). Thus, the present invention provides: a positive resist material having higher sensitivity than conventional positive resist materials, and smaller dimensional variation; and a patterning process using this inventive positive resist material.