La Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit est présentement à entendre l’argumentaire des parties dans l’affaire In re Bilski.
La revendication 1 est comme suit:
1. A method for managing the consumption risk costs of a commodity sold by a commodity provider at a fixed price comprising the steps of:
(a) initiating a series of transactions between said commodity provider and consumers of said commodity wherein said consumers purchase said commodity at a fixed rate based upon historical averages, said fixed rate corresponding to a risk position of said consumer;
(b) identifying market participants for said commodity having a counter-risk position to said consumers; and
(c) initiating a series of transactions between said commodity provider and said market participants at a second fixed rate such that said series of market participant transactions balances the risk position of said series of consumer transactions.
Bien que le Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences ait rejeté le test de l’Examinateur en ce qui a trait aux “technological artsâ€, il a tout de même rejeté les revendications comme n’incluant aucune “transformation physique”.
Devant la CAFC, le USPTO défend comme position que la revendication 1 ne décrit pas de la matière brevetable puisqu’elle comporte un “mental process”.