Alternative Software Protection in View of In re Bilski

Abstract

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit\u27s (CAFC) en banc decision, In re Bilski, redefined the standard for patenting processes including business methods and computer software. In Bilski, the Federal Circuit departed from the useful, concrete, and tangible result test it had established in State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. SignatureFinancialGroup,Inc., which had been the standard for the past ten years. The Federal Circuit returned to a test articulated nearly 40 years ago by the Supreme Court in Gottschalk v. Benson, and clarified that State Street was never intended to supplant the Supreme Court\u27s test. , Under this revived Supreme Court test, to be patent-eligible a claimed process must 1) be tied to a particular machine or apparatus or 2) transform a particular article into a different state or thing