If you want to see something about these cases from a not-so-pro-patent point of view, see for
example http://www.eff.org/cases/re-bilski" (EFF) or
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080409033837121 (groklaw). Things are not going so
badly these days (see for example the Supreme Court's KSR decision -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KSR_v._Teleflex - regarding obviousness which is having a big
impact in the lower courts and patent office), although of course things had gotten pretty far
out of whack in the 1980s and 1990s, and these things can turn around pretty slowly.