Kane had his Rosebud; patent law now has its Bilski, Bilski v. Kappos, the long-awaited Supreme Court opinion on the nature of patent law’s subject matter eligibility standard. As Wendy Seltzer notes at Freedom to Tinker, “the Court’s majority gave us a set of ‘clues’ which future applicants, Sherlock Holmes-like, must use to discern the boundaries separating patentable processes from unpatentable ‘abstract ideas.’ Let the search begin.
Some smart IP scholars have wrapped their heads around the question and put together a long-ish podcast on the question. To hear John Duffy, David Olson, and Adam Mossoff share their thoughts, click over to this site.