A district court and then the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit en banc threw out the so-called State Street test for patentability when they said that a method of hedging risks in commodities trading could not be patented and reiterated the old machine-or-transformation test as a patent threshold. The case has implication for the software business and so has been carefully watched.

In keeping with the new PC Microsoft and IBM filed amicus briefs arguing for limiting patent rights. Accenture takes an opposite view as does Big Pharma claiming it will inhibit innovation.

The Supreme Court has been taking a narrow view of patent rights lately and the appeals court's decision seemed to fall in line with high court's recent temper so it's odd that the Supremes are taking the case.

In what passes for tittle-tattle in such circles, BLT, the legal blog, notes that back in January Kevin Noonan, the ex-husband of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, writing in the Patentdocs blog reserved for patent lawyers with doctorates in scientific fields, said Bilski was "‘spreading like a stain' to mar a broad range of patents."