The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a patent case that has held the software industry and patent attorneys in suspense for much of the last year.

However, the decision, which came down on the last day of the court’s term, was worth the wait for advocates in favor of the patentability of business processes.

In Bilski v. Kappos, the Supreme Court struck down a lower court’s decision that would have put business processes through an onerous test of eligibility.

For these firms, the status quo in patent law remains the same — the only hurdles to patentability of processes are such factors as novelty and nonobviousness, Washington, D.C., technology attorney Raymond Van Dyke told the E-Commerce Times.

The decision has “spared major upheavals of the patent laws,” he said. “The Court wisely steered clear of undermining millions of patents and patent applications and chastised the Federal Circuit for their irrational exuberance.”

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