The United States Supreme Court issued an order yesterday granting certiorari in Bilski v. Doll, a case that tests the limits of patenting business methods and other processes, including some software-related inventions. The order comes as a surprise to many experts in the patent law and technology communities, and the Bilski case will be one of the more closely watched IP cases in the Supreme Court in recent memory.

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The en banc Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued, on October 30th, its long-awaited decision in In re Bilski, attempting to clarify the rules for business method patent eligibility under § 101 of the Patent Act.  In a 9-3 split, the Court affirmed the Patent Office’s decision that Bilski could not patent his method of hedging options to manage commodities trading risk.  While it is clear that the opinion will scale back the patenting of business method patents to some extent, it is difficult to determine how much, and to what extent it may affect software patenting.  Unfortunately, even after 136 pages (including three dissents and a concurrence), the majority opinion appears to leave more questions than answers.

The Opinion can be found at:  http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/07-1130.pdf.