In 1997, Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw filed a patent application for a method of hedging risk in the field of commodities trading. In effect, the asserted invention was a method of protecting buyers from sudden spikes in the price of commodities, such as coal, by matching them with sellers who were averse to sudden dips in price or demand. After the patent application was rejected by the USPTO, the inventors appealed to the Federal Circuit, which affirmed the rejection. Finally, appeal was taken to the Supreme Court, which similarly affirmed the rejection of the patent application. The Court based its rejection on the ground that the purported invention was an “abstract idea.” Under the Court’s longstanding precedents, abstract ideas are unpatentable. What are the three principal requirements for patentability mentioned in this chapter? Which of these, do you think, might the Court have utilized as an alternate basis for rejecting Bilski and Warsaw’s patent application?