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Bilski Redux (with a touch of reflux)

By Pamela Jones et al.

Now that the Supreme Court has decided to grant certiorari in the In Re Bilski case, I thought it would be useful to take a look at the petitioners' petition [PDF], as well as some amicus briefs in support, so you'll know what the Supreme Court will be considering in October. This is the case about whether one can patent a method for hedging the risk of bad weather through commodity trading. The Federal Circuit en banc said no, applying a machine or transformation test, but the inventors appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, so here we go.

First, what does it mean that the Supreme Court will consider this case? Who knows? Here's some attorney guesses on The Prior Art. My personal favorite:

"It's very difficult to believe the Supreme Court will be more welcoming to Bilski than the Federal Circuit was," says Ed Reines, a patent litigator at Weil, Gotshal & Manges with a client list of tech heavyweights. It doesn't help that Bilski's patent is on a complex scheme to hedge commodity prices. "The zeitgeist right now is not sympathetic towards financial hedging schemes," notes Reines.

Amen to that. I've done the petition as text, and I have collected some amicus briefs as PDFs.

Full post as published by Groklaw on June 02, 2009 (boomark / email).