“”Jones,” an old-time radio figure who thought his creations in
a garage would bring him fame and fortune, made an appearance in
the first question, by Justice Antonin Scalia.“Scalia also suggested the seeming absurdity of a patent for
Dale Carnegie’s influential 1936 book, How to Win Friends and
Influence People. But it was the “Lorenzo Jones” comment that set
the tone for the entire argument in Bilski, et al., v. Kappos
(08-964). It would take a most inventive analyst to find a way in
the argument for the risk-management idea under review to fit into
the Patent Act’s coverage. The idea had no defenders whatsoever on
the bench“The largest question left unanswered when the one-hour argument
was over was whether the Court would go forward and issue a major
new ruling interpreting patent law, when the practical result here
seemed so evident. Lawyers and judges have invested heavy resources
in the Bilski case, and it does raise a fundamental question that
may well need answering. But, when there may well be no formulation
of patent law that would salvage the Bilski-Warsaw creation, why
bother?”