Supremes rule on Bilski

The US Supreme Court has ruled on a long-awaited--and controversial--patent litigation case, a decision greeted with relief by the biotech industry but vague enough that both sides can claim victory. The Bilski v. Kappos case was closely watched by the biotech community after the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in 2008 that only methods tied to a machine or transformed into a different state are patentable, a standard which appeared to exclude crucial aspects of medical diagnostics. Commentators feared a restrictive ruling could have severely limited the ability to obtain patents on methods that use genes, proteins and metabolites to diagnose disease. Instead, the Supreme Court struck down patent claims on narrow grounds.