Business method patents litmus test.

Good news on the anti-intellectual property front: the Supreme Court US Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to hear a case over business method patents, that some say could render them entirely unpatentable. Business method patents are pretty self explanatory – they patent a non-physical process, in this case, a commodities trading strategy. But they can range from the totally abstract and trivial (Amazon's infamous 1-click check-out patent) to the highly technical (like this one, apparently). The Court will hear arguments in "Bilski," as the case is known, in May. Here's the case as ruled by the last judge.