News

IP Cases of the Decade

Law360
January 13, 2010

Media Mention

This article examines several landmark rulings over the last 10 years that have shaped the IP landscape. Among the cases listed is Bilski et al v. Kappos: although the Supreme Court has not yet handed down a verdict, the authors included the case because the Federal Circuit’s 2008 decision and the justices’ comments at oral arguments in November signal that business methods and other processes are not going to be as easy to patent as they once were. The Federal Circuit rolled out a test requiring that a patentable process either be tied to a machine or involve a transformation; using that test, it tossed a patent application filed by investors Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw for a method for hedging risks in commodities trading. The Supreme Court granted the investors’ petition for certiorari in June 2009; among the 70 amicus briefs filed in the case, some parties criticized the Federal Circuit’s test for being too rigid and for potentially excluding processes made by medical diagnostic, software, and financial services firms. Bilski is represented by Finnegan.