Court of Appeals Invalidated Business Process Patents

The decision reversing the 1998 case which allowed things like risk hedging strategies, the "U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in Washington, voted 9-3 that patents should be limited to 'physical objects or substances' and not be awarded to 'abstractions' like a bank's risk-hedging strategy."

Thiw will doubtless go to the Supreme Court, but this is fundamentally a good decision:

In its 132-page decision, the court said a patent can cover a "process that transforms a particular article to a specified different state or thing by applying a fundamental principle" but cannot cover the principle itself.

This is, I think, a response to the fact that the Supreme Court consistently reversing the court, and an understanding that they can no longer subscribe to the theory that everything should be patentable.