Today the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case Bilski v. Doll. As many readers may know, the case In re Bilski is the case in which the Federal Circuit court of appeals held that business methods are not patentable unless: 1) they transform matter into a different state or thing, or 2) they are tied to particular machine. This will be the first time the U.S. Supreme Court has addressed statutory subject matter under 35 U.S.C. sec. 101 since the 1981 case of Diamond v. Diehr where the Court held that the execution of a physical process, controlled in part by the running a computer program, was patentable.

It will take some time for the case to go through the briefing stage, and then to schedule oral arguments, before the Court will render a decision. In view of the fact that the Court is about to recess for the summer, we probably won't get a decision on this case until late 2009 or early 2010. We'll keep you posted nonetheless, as this case could have a major impact on patents for video games and other interactive entertainment and media.

Read more from Brad Wright of Banner & Witcoff here.