by Mark Malek

Last week we reported that the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on In re Bilski.  Since the Bilski case can have some major ramifications on determining the types of patentable subject matter, we wanted to take a deeper dive into what was actually discussed at the hearing.  What we found was that the Supreme Court Justices presented several entertaining scenarios during the oral arguments.

At issue in this case is whether a system for hedging risks in commodities trading is patentable subject matter pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 101.  This decision may have a profound effect on software inventions, business method inventions and pharmaceutical inventions, mainly because these inventions generally lack structure elements, i.e., these are not machines with big moving parts that one can lay hands on.  Instead, these inventions can generally be defined as a set of steps that must be followed in order for the invention to be carried out.

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