Bilski v. Doll: it doesn't sound exciting, but when the US Supreme Court hears the cast later this term, patent lawyers and software engineers around the country will scrutinize it closely. It's one of the few patent cases that the justices have taken over the last decade, and it has the potential to put the smackdown on many kinds of "business method" and software patents.

Cato Institute adjunct scholar (and sometime Ars contributor) Tim Lee has a nice discussion of what's at stake in the case, and he makes an impassioned plea for an end to software patents. Money quote: