Today, the US Supreme Court handed down its long awaited decision on business patents, Bilski v. Kappos (Click here for the opinion). The Court held that business patents have to be tied to a machine, as has been the norm since their first appearance in State Street.
The Volokh Conspiracy sum’s up an important point in today’s decision, stating “The Court does not hold that so-called business method patents are categorically excluded from patent protection under the Federal Patent Act.” [Post by Jonathan Adler]
Bilski is an important decision not only because it went to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals twice (the second one being En Banc) but because its holding may determine the validity of thousands of software patents that are not per se tied to a machine (ie. Cloud computing).
ActualConfusion will be taking some time to carefully read the opinion and then make some notes about it. We invite you to share your thoughts on how you think Bilski will affect (or not) future (and present) software patents.
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