Two persons who worked together to develop a business method applied for a patent. The invention for which they sought a patent explained how buyers and sellers of commodities in the energy market could protect, or hedge, against the risk of price changes. The key claims were claims 1 and 4. Claim 1 described a series of steps that amounted to instructions on how to hedge risk. Claim 4 put the concept articulated in claim 1 into a simple mathematical formula.

The remaining claims explained how claims 1 and 4 could be applied to allow energy suppliers and consumers to minimize the risks resulting from fluctuations in market demand for energy. Some of those claims also suggested familiar statistical approaches to determine the inputs to use in claim 4’s equation. Are business methods potentially patentable? Should a patent be awarded for this particular claimed invention?