Justices Take Broad View of Business Method Patents

The door to the patent office should remain open to those who create methods of doing business, the Supreme Court said in a long-awaited decision released on Monday. The plaintiffs in the case, Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw, tried to patent a system that institutions like businesses and schools could use to hedge the seasonal risks of buying energy. The question at issue in was whether a patent should be granted on processes that do not meet what is known as the “machine-or-transformation” test — that is, the process is not tied to a particular machine or does not change a particular article into a different state or thing. Finnegan partner J. Michael Jakes, who represented Bilski and Warsaw, said that he and his clients were “disappointed by today’s decision” because they believed that the hedging method should have been patentable. “We are pleased,” he continued, with the broader message of the case — that business methods could be patented, and that process patents would not be limited to the machine-or-transformation test. He said that the Bilski/Warsaw patent application would be resubmitted.