Deepak Malhotra at PatentsUSA.com has years of experience obtaining allowances of software patents a

Added: (Thu Jun 11 2009)

Pressbox (Press Release) - (PR WEB) June 11, 2009 -- The Supreme Court of the U.S. has agreed to review the Bilski case discussed below. The Bilski case disavowed the controversial State Street Bank decision and severely limited the possibility of obtaining business method patents and put the validity of many into question. It also affects software cases that do not describe a lot of hardware, and, in fact, is relevant to all method cases.

The Bilski decision set forth a requirement that any process claim in a patent must be tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or transform a particular article into a different state or thing ("machine-or-transformation" test), to be eligible for patenting under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

It seems likely that the Supreme Court will at least partially reverse. The Supreme Court would not take the case up for review unless it had something to say.

The requirement for patentability of software has been in flux for 20 years. Hopefully we will soon have some clarity.

Deepak Malhotra, registered U.S. patent attorney, has been monitoring all significant cases affecting software patents, and posts them on his blog at patentsusa.blogspot.com, which can be reached via his website at www.patentsusa.com. He has been successful at obtaining allowances of software patents for years. Even if the Bilski decision is not reversed, he has a formula for drafting software patent applications such that they will be able to survive Bilski challenges, by including functional block diagrams and by describing hardware elements that software developers would not normally think to be relevant. He has represented all sizes of companies, from Fortune 500 companies to venture funded startups against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.