Posts Tagged ‘plant variety protection act’

Patent Law: How Patents Grew Over Time To Include Living Organisms – 3

In this final post, I shift ground a bit to talk about a case the Supreme Court will consider in its new term starting this fall. The case is known Bilski v. Doll. The Bilski case raises the basic question, when is a process too abstract to be patentable? The answer to the question will obviously be most pertinent to patents on things like computer software and methods of conducting business (such as finance or marketing strategies). But, depending on how the Court explains its decision, the case could have broader implications for whether people can patent other processes, such as a process for diagnosing an illness or for treating an illness.