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Supreme Court Expands Patent Protections

Published on 07/02/2010

The Supreme Court has made it easier for inventors to obtain patent protection in an exceptionally important ruling earlier this week.

In the highly anticipated Bilski v. Kappos decision, the Court maintains that patent law must be flexible enough to handle the recent surge in patent applications.

In 2008, the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted twice as many patents as in 1990.

This new ruling overturns a previous decision that severely limited patent protection to specific parts of inventions.

The Court's new ruling essentially does away with the 'machine or transformation test' which limited patents to parts of a machine or to something that transforms one thing into another.

This decision will afford great flexibility to innovators. More than 65 amicus briefs were filed by noted biotechnology and research groups including Yahoo, Bank of America, Microsoft, and the University of California.

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