Stated narrowly, the Supreme Court’s holding in Bilski was that the claims sought are unpatentably abstract. Moving forward, I believe that it will become increasingly important to consider how the courts and the Patent Office will delineate the boundaries of the doctrine — i.e., when does a claim move into the realm of impermissible abstraction?

In its opinion, the Supreme Court offers a few nuggets of reasoning to explain its conclusion. In particular, the Court found that the Bilski claims were abstract because they were so broadly written so as to cover the entire concept of risk hedging....