Editing Software patent debate (section)

=== ''Bilski'' case ===
The ''Bilski'' case involved a patent application on methods for hedging against commodity price fluctuations, which the [[United States Patent and Trademark Office|PTO]] had rejected. The [[United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit|Federal Circuit]], in ''[[In re Bilski]]'', upheld the PTO's rejection on the grounds that the claims failed the [[machine-or-transformation test]], which the court held should be used as the sole test of patent eligibility. The court did not hold that all business methods are patent ineligible, though a minority of the judges would have ruled that business methods are not properly the subject of patents.

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of ineligibility, in ''[[Bilski v. Kappos]]'', but on more general, and less articulated in detail, grounds of undue abstractness. It rejected the Federal Circuit's elevation of the machine-or-transformation test as the sole test of patent eligibility, saying that rather it was simply a "useful clue." The 5-4 majority refused to hold that all business methods were incapable of being patented, but four justices would have established such a rule. A concurring opinion pointed out that the Court was unanimous, however, as to many issues in the ''Bilski'' case, including a rejection of the Federal Circuit's late 1990s [[State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group|''State Street Bank'']] decision, which allowed patents on any advance, technical or nontechnical (and in that case a numerical financial calculation of stock price changes) that produces a "useful, concrete and tangible result."

The Supreme Court's ''Bilski'' decision was criticized because of its lack of detailed guidance on how to determine whether a claim was directed to an abstract idea. Nonetheless, it provided some clarification and affirmed the Federal Circuit's taking a new direction in its software-related patent cases.