The US Supreme Court gave earlier today his most important decision on patents within the last few years, and one of the most important decision on patents ever – in the very long-waited case of bilski. The full decision can be accessed here.

While this has nothing to do with European, UK or Israeli law, this decision is of much interest to anyone with any interst in patents, so of course we cannot ignore it.

The Fundamentals of the decision:

- The bilski patent itself was invalidated as being a mental act.
- Business methods are not excluded from patentability.
- The court did not exclude software as patentable, but did not also confirm that software is patentable.
- The “Machine-or-Transformation” test can provide a “clue” as to what processes can be patentable. It is not a conclusive test.

We find this decision a great victory to patent owners.

Bilski v. Kappos (Supreme Court 2010)(08-964)

Up until March 2008, software patents were hardly allowed in the UK. The breakthrough was on the High Court of Justice Decision in the matter of SYMBIAN LTD V. Controller General of Patents, where a method of accessing DLL files was claimed.

Since this blog is not about philosophy but about bottom lines – here it is: UK law is being put in line with European law. Software claims will be allowed if they include a technical effect. Naturally, it will take examiners time to get the point, but they will eventually.

Here is the bottom line from the ruling:

“The question I must now consider is whether the decision prohibits the patenting of all computer programs and, in particular, those which under the old approach would have been considered to make a conventional computer operate in a new way so as to deliver a relevant technical contribution…UK-IPO has apparently concluded that it does and so has reverted to its previous practice of rejecting all computer program claims … I do not detect anything in the reasoning of the Court of Appeal which suggests that all computer programs are necessarily excluded,”