Bilski: business as usual

Bilski: business as usual

Yeh, there are silver linings, like the rejection of two of the CAFC's worst rulings:

nothing in today’s opinion should be read as endorsing interpretations of §101 that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has used in the past. See, e.g., State Street, 149 F. 3d, at 1373; AT&T Corp.

The End Software Patents brief argued that these were based on mis-applications of the Supreme Court's case law (an argument developed by Ben Klemens). Glad to see they got slapped.

But this isn't enough. The Supreme Court's decision is to be interpreted by the CAFC and the USPTO. Both are madly pro-swpat, so only a very clear rule would hold them back. We didn't get any clear rules today, so there'll be no change. The real silver lining here is that the Supremes didn't make the situation any worse (not much silver though, when you consider how little room there is for being worse than the current situation).