This article explores how the Supreme Court will rule in its pending “method of doing business” case. The author makes the following prognostications:
1) Justice Stevens will author the Bilski decision as he was the author of the dissenting opinion in the Metabolite case involving medical diagnostic testing, the author of Parker v. Flook (disallowing mathematical formulas to calculate alarm limits), and was the principal dissenter in Diamond v. Diehr (would have disallowed adding a digital thermometer in a process claim);
2) Business method claims per the Federal Circuit’s State Street decision will be significantly curtailed, if not eliminated;
3) Software patents will remain; and
4) Processes (including business methods) will be limited to those that are either a) tied to a particular machine or apparatus; or b) cause transformation or reduction of an article to a different state or thing.