Managing Intellectual Property

The Bilski ruling in quotes

29 June 2010

Managing Intellectual Property

Here are some of the key sections of the three opinions issued by the US Supreme Court in the Bilski case (footnotes omitted)

Opinion by Justice Kennedy, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito and Scalia (in part)

The term "method," which is within §100(b)’s definition of "process," at least as a textual matter and before consulting other limitations in the Patent Act and this Court’s precedents, may include at least some methods of doing business.

... the statute itself acknowledges that there may be business method patents.

... the Court once again declines to impose limitations on the Patent Act that are inconsistent with the Act’s text. The patent application here can be rejected under our precedents on the unpatentability of abstract ideas. The Court, therefore, need not define further what constitutes a patentable "process," beyond pointing to the definition of that term provided in §100(b) and looking to the guideposts in Benson , Flook , and Diehr .

In disapproving an exclusive machine-or-transformation test, we by no means foreclose the Federal...



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