The Bilski Business Process Patent Case

The US Patent and Trademark Office website, lists the questions presented in the Bilski Patent case that is pending before the Supreme Court. The case will be argued on November 9, 2009. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also has a nice summary of the issues and the ramifications for the technology community.


QUESTIONS PRESENTED:

Whether the Federal Circuit erred by holding that a "process" 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, despite this Court's precedent declining to limit the broad statutory grant of patent eligibility for "any" new and useful process beyond excluding patents for "laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas."

"Whether the Federal Circuit's "machine-or-transformation" test for patent eligibility, which effectively forecloses meaningful patent protection to many business methods, contradicts the clear Congressional intent that patents protect "method[s] of doing or conducting business."