Final Bilski Briefs Filed – Microsoft, Google, FFII, ABA, etc.

“Microsoft asks that the lower court’s rejection of Bilski’s
patent be upheld, but they also believe the
“machine-or-transformation” test the lower court set forth should
be disapproved. Instead, they think the standard should be “new and
useful”:

“While electronic computers have become ubiquitous and almost
infinitely varied in form and function, virtually all of them rely
for their operation on the same physical activity–the routing and
rerouting of electrical signals by means of on-off switches such as
transistors. A “hardware” device, such as a laptop computer,
contains millions of tiny transistor switches; “software” is the
set of instructions that determines the configuration of and
directs electrical signals through these switches so that the
device will do something useful. While both hardware and software
have become increasingly complex, the underlying activity–the
sequential operation of switches–has been the basis of
patent-eligible processes since at least the Industrial
Revolution.”

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