US Supreme Court avoids clarifying patent testing
JUN 30, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024463
Nature : Earlier this week, the US Supreme Court unanimously upheld a Federal Appeals Court judgment in Bilski v. Kappos , a patent infringement case. In 1997, Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw filed a patent application for a new way to hedge financial risk. The US Patent Office rejected the application, stating
The invention is not implemented on a specific apparatus and merely manipulates [an] abstract idea and solves a purely mathematical problem without any limitation to a practical application, therefore, the invention is not directed to the technological arts.
The appeals court upheld the rejection, which was based on applying the so-called machine-or-transformation test. The Supreme Court upheld the rejection. However, even though the test had emerged from previous Supreme Court decisions, the Supreme Court opined that the test should not be the only consideration for patents that involve ideas or processes. As Nature‘s Heidi Ledford reports, the decision in Bilski v. Kappos has not clarified US patent law as much as some innovators, notably in the medical diagnostics industry, had hoped.
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
