‘Math Geek’ Tells of 'Staggering' Legal Fees in Patent Case to Be Argued Today
Since 1997, Rand Warsaw and Bernie Bilski have been pursuing a patent on their mathematical method that helps utility companies offer uniform energy bills to consumers by hedging transactions against weather patterns.
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider the legal issue in Bilski v. Kappos—whether patents can be granted for business methods that aren’t tied to a machine or don’t involve a physical transformation.
Sixty-seven amicus briefs have been filed in the case. “We’re in a different place. We’re not patenting 19th century gears,” Warsaw told the National Law Journal. “It’s electrons, or new ways of sequencing genes or software algorithms now.”
Warsaw said he and Bilski were just a couple of “math geeks for hire” when they devised their hedging method. Since then, he told the NLJ, he has paid “a staggering amount” in legal fees on the case, although he wouldn’t hazard a guess as to the exact numbers.
Had he known “how steep this climb would be,” Warsaw says, he may not have pursued the case. “If you laid out the path for me in 1996, would I have continued? Probably not,” he told the NLJ.
The Wall Street Journal says companies filing amicus briefs include Microsoft Corp., Bank of America Corp., L.L. Bean Inc., International Business Machines Corp., and Google Inc.
Mayer Brown partner Andrew Pincus, who filed an amicus on behalf of a software trade group, told the Wall Street Journal that the outcome of the case could have a big impact. “Certainly, some of the more extreme positions that are being urged before the court could eliminate patents with hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in value,” he said.
