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Supreme Court to hear Bilski

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

On June 1, the day General Motors filed for bankruptcy, the Supreme Court decided to hear Bilski.

The LA Times wrote:

While some software and business consulting giants backed Bilski's quest for a broad, inclusive definition of what is patentable, others, including Microsoft Corp. and IBM, argued in support of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's move to impose a physicality test after years of rather liberal interpretations by patent examiners over what qualified as an invention.

The coverage by the New York Times had the following:

But courts have relied on the decision of the appeals court since October to deny patent protection to methods of marketing software products, detecting fraud in credit card transactions and creating real estate investment instruments. In March, a federal judge in San Francisco wrote that the appeals court?s decision signaled that ?the closing bell may be ringing for business method patents, and their patentees may find they have become bagholders.?

Full post as published by IPBiz on June 01, 2009 (boomark / email).