According to The National Law Journal, among the last acts of the American Bar Association's annual meeting, the ABA House of Delegates adopted several resolutions of importance to the intellectual property bar, including one that will allow the ABA to file an amicus brief in what's expected to be a landmark case before the Supreme Court.
The ABA can now file an amicus brief in Bilski v. Doll, a case about business method patents that was granted certiorari by the Supreme Court last November. The case asks whether a "process" must be tied to a machine or transform something into a different state in order to be eligible for patent protection and whether that test contradicts congressional intent.
It's the most important patent case to be taken up by the high court in 50 years, said Rob Lindefjeld, secretary of the ABA's Intellectual Property Law Section.
"We're really worried that the Supreme Court will do considerable damage to patents in the area of methods of doing business that should be entitled to protection and swing the pendulum way too far and hurt the patent system for a long time," Lindefjeld said in an interview.
The ABA can now file an amicus brief in Bilski v. Doll, a case about business method patents that was granted certiorari by the Supreme Court last November. The case asks whether a "process" must be tied to a machine or transform something into a different state in order to be eligible for patent protection and whether that test contradicts congressional intent.
It's the most important patent case to be taken up by the high court in 50 years, said Rob Lindefjeld, secretary of the ABA's Intellectual Property Law Section.
"We're really worried that the Supreme Court will do considerable damage to patents in the area of methods of doing business that should be entitled to protection and swing the pendulum way too far and hurt the patent system for a long time," Lindefjeld said in an interview.