June 1, 2009, Supreme Court grants cert. for Bilski

The Supreme Court of the U.S. has agreed to review the Bilski case discussed below. The Bilski case disavowed the controversial State Street Bank decision and severely limited the possibility of obtaining business method patents and put the validity of many into question. It also affects software cases that do not describe a lot of hardware, and, in fact, is relevant to all method cases.

The Bilski decision set forth a requirement that any process claim in a patent must be tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or transform a particular article into a different
state or thing ("machine-or-transformation" test), to be eligible for patenting under 35 U.S.C.
§ 101.

It seems likely that the Supreme Court will at least partially reverse. The Supreme Court would not take the case up for review unless it had something to say.

The requirements for patentability of software has been in flux for 20 years. Hopefully we will soon have some clarity.