Bilski at the Supreme Court

Abstract:     
The Supreme Court has not ruled on a case concerning patentable subject matter since 1981, but that is about to change. The oral argument in Bilski presaged a likely outcome of the litigation that will not satisfy the petitioners, and it yielded only inconclusive hints about the direction the Court may take on the issue of most importance to onlookers - whether the Court will provide more concrete guidance on the patent eligibility of claims based entirely on positive law or ordinary human activity, and whether the Court will establish a new, narrower-scope standard for process patents. This article provides background on Bilski and commentary on the key questions and points made at the oral argument.

The reader is also referred to Doc 2010-4657, which provides the most up-to-date version of a comprehensive bibliography on business method patents generally, and tax strategy patents in particular. The author maintains this bibliography for the American Bar Association Section of Taxation’s task force on patenting tax strategies. The bibliography primarily lists significant academic and practitioner articles and books on business method and tax patents, but it also includes some key cases and briefs, timely news stories, and most recently, additional coverage of the Bilski saga in the intellectual property blogosphere.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 9

Accepted Paper Series