In re Bilski

By a 5-4 vote on Monday, June 28, the United States Supreme Court rejected the notion that business methods are categorically unpatentable. By a unanimous vote, however, the Court affirmed the PTO and Federal Circuit’s rulings rejecting Bilski’s patent claims on methods of hedging commodity risks. The Court also unanimously agreed that while the "machine or transformation" test adopted by the Federal Circuit is a useful indicator of patentability, it is not the sole test for patentability under Section 101 of the Patent Act. Although many had feared -- and some had hoped -- that business method and software patents would be invalid, the Court’s relatively narrow decision should allay those fears and dash those hopes at least for the moment.

Panelists included Perkins Coie partners Ramsey Al-Salam, Steve Lawrenz, Maurice Pirio and Jerry Riedinger; Intellectual Ventures' Senior Litigation Counsel Melissa Finocchio and Bart Eppenauer, Chief Patent Counsel for Microsoft Corporation.  The moderator was Perkins Coie partner Rajiv Sarathy.