Not to be nitpicky with the article, but it's a little misleading when it says (right above this quoted section):
"What is clear is that the “non-obviousness” part of the test for patentability has not been applied anywhere near rigorously enough to internet and business-process patents. Because they lack a history of “prior art” to refer to, examiners and judges have granted a lot of shoddy patents for software and business processes."
Bilski has nothing to do with obviousness. Bilski is about the subject matter requirement, which is that patents can only be granted on certain types of inventions. For example, physical machines can be patented, but electronic signals cannot.
This is another reason (in addition to Grellas's below) that I doubt Bilski will have a big effect on software patents. Regardless of the outcome of the case, it will be most likely easy to work around, simply by tying the software to some sort of machine, be it a computer, mobile phone, embedded circuit, or anything else.
"What is clear is that the “non-obviousness” part of the test for patentability has not been applied anywhere near rigorously enough to internet and business-process patents. Because they lack a history of “prior art” to refer to, examiners and judges have granted a lot of shoddy patents for software and business processes."
Bilski has nothing to do with obviousness. Bilski is about the subject matter requirement, which is that patents can only be granted on certain types of inventions. For example, physical machines can be patented, but electronic signals cannot.
This is another reason (in addition to Grellas's below) that I doubt Bilski will have a big effect on software patents. Regardless of the outcome of the case, it will be most likely easy to work around, simply by tying the software to some sort of machine, be it a computer, mobile phone, embedded circuit, or anything else.