Business method patenting?

The US Federal Circuit (9 panel bench) has handed down its decision ruling that Bilski’s method of hedging risks in commodities trading was not patentable.

As summarised by Patently-O, the majority opinion substantially retreats from State Street.

a process claim [must be] tailored narrowly enough to encompass only a particular application of a fundamental principle rather than to pre-empt the principle itself. A claimed process is surely patent-eligible under § 101 if: (1) it is tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or (2) it transforms a particular article into a different state or thing.

Judge Newman would have found the invention patentable; Judge Rader would have rejected the patent, without the need to develop a new principle, on the grounds that all that was claimed was an abstract principle.

Read Patently-O’s summary, which also has a link to the decision itself.  Compare our Full Federal Court in Grant.

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