In Re Bilski

It took the Federal Circuit well over 100 pages to articulate, criticize, and discuss its articulation of patent law's subject matter restrictions. The first 35 pages are perhaps the most gripping: the majority there lays out the new rules and seems to hint that its decision was tightly constrained by Supreme Court precedent from decades past. After that come an array of important caveats, for instance Judge Newman worrying that the majority's decision upsets settled expectations while Judge Mayer cynically suspects that clever drafters will find a way to render the rule a nullity.