Supreme Court to Review Decision on Business Method Patents

The U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari in In re Bilski, thereby agreeing to consider the extent of patent protection for business methods. This will be an important ruling for inventors and patent practitioners, as attorney Robert Bain explains: "I'm eager to hear from the Supreme Court regarding the Federal Circuit's machine-or-transformation test for determining whether a business method is directed to patent-eligible subject matter. Since the Federal Circuit's decision last fall, the Patent Office appears to be using this test to more aggressively reject patent applications involving not only business methods but also computer or software-related inventions. The Supreme Court's upcoming decision may provide clarity as to the bounds of the fairly rigid machine-or-transformation test but I suspect the Court may set out a flexible approach that raises more questions than it answers." The case will likely be heard in the Fall.