Bilski — A Financial Patent’s Waterloo?
From Law360 (subscription required):
Bilski — A Financial Patent’s Waterloo?
Law360, New York (July 23, 2010) — Michael Lewis’ best-seller, The Big Short, reads like the best of Agatha Christie’s mysteries, chronicling the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and its infectious spread to the underpinnings of our credit system, methodically wiping out wealth measured in trillions of dollars.
On the heels of its two-year recovery, these markets are now confronted with a new and complex infrastructure of financial regulations that might even embarrass Carter Glass and Henry Steagall of Glass-Steagall fame. To this, now add the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bilski — a ruling many thought would remove patent protection from this industry. Did it?
. . .
When the Supreme Court issued its Bilski decision, a divided court rejected both the narrowing test of the Federal Circuit and an absolute bar to business method patents — a ruling that may preserve many of the business method patents in the financial world. No Waterloo today.
–By James M. Bollinger, Troutman Sanders LLP