Business Methods Not Excluded from Patentability - U.S. Supreme Court in Bilski

U.S. Supreme Court in Bilski In Bilski v. Kappos, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the patentability of the Bilski patent application in issue, as well as addressed broader questions of whether business methods can be categorically excluded from patentability and how to determine the patentability of a "process" under 35 U.S.C. §101 of the United States Patent Act.

The claims in the Bilski patent application were generally directed to methods for managing investors' risk in a commodities market. The U.S. Patent Office argued before the Supreme Court that the claimed invention was not patentable because: 1) the claimed invention was not tied to a particular machine or did not transform an article to a different form or state; 2) the claimed invention involved a method of conducting business; and 3) the claimed invention was merely an abstract idea.