Should techniques for training horses be eligible for a patent? What about a system for choosing a jury or fail-proof method for speed dating?

Supreme Court justices raised the questions Monday as they struggled to decide what types of inventions should qualify for patent protection.

In a case that has put software and bioscience companies on edge, the justices debated whether processes or methods of doing business should be eligible for protection. The dispute has raised serious questions about whether software programs, medical procedures, financial transactions and other nontangible inventions should be able to obtain patents like those granted to physical devices. And it left the high court grappling with the line between abstract processes and concrete applications.

Monday's oral arguments made clear that the justices are skeptical that the business method at the center of the case before them — a process of hedging weather-related risk in energy prices — deserves a patent. Some saw a risk in using the current case to set broad precedent on what can and cannot be patented.

The court's newest justice, Sonia Sotomayor, asked the lawyer defending the hedging application how the high court can limit patent protection to "something that is reasonable?"

In 1997, inventors Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw applied for a patent on a process that can be used by residential and commercial customers to lock in fixed energy bills, even during an unusually cold winter. The Patent Office concluded the process was too abstract and denied the application.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the Patent Office decision last year and said a process is eligible for a patent only if it is "tied to a particular machine or apparatus" or if it "transforms a particular article into a different state or thing." The circuit court said Bilski's process did not meet that test.

The question before the Supreme Court on Monday was whether the "machine-or-transformation" test is the right standard.

Michael Jakes, the attorney representing Bilski and Warsaw, told the high court that the test is too "rigid and narrow" and would exclude too many useful innovations in today's information-based economy, including his clients' hedging technique.

A judge tasked with unraveling an alleged $2.8 million kickback scheme involving two Pennsylvania judges says they presided over a juvenile justice system "run amok."

Senior Bucks County Judge Arthur Grim told a state investigatory panel Monday that former Judge Mark Ciavarella (shiv-uh-REL'-uh) sentenced juvenile offenders to jail without exploring the charges against them.

Grim's testimony follows his review of thousands of cases after the scandal came to light.

Ciavarella and former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan are accused of accepting payoffs from two private juvenile detention centers.

The state Supreme Court last month threw out thousands of juvenile cases that came before Ciavarella. It said none of the young offenders got a fair hearing.

hen Biopure Corp. decided to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July, the biotech was already working with Ropes & Gray LLP, the largest law firm in Boston.

But Biopure CEO Zaf Zafirelis decided to tap a much smaller firm, a 26-lawyer Boston-based outfit called Craig & Macauley PC with virtually no name recognition, to handle its bankruptcy proceedings.

“I was very, very impressed with the clarity with which they outlined what was going to happen,” said Zafirelis. “It’s a traumatic event for any company to file for bankruptcy. I can honestly say that working through this whole thing with (Craig & Macauley) made it a lot simpler for us.”

Like Craig and Macauley, bankruptcy boutiques across the country have been quietly booming in this economy as bankruptcies and workouts soar. Unlike large law firms which have been pummeled by the recession, forcing them to fire lawyers and entirely rethink established business practices, these smaller bankruptcy shops say the current economy is actually an opportunity to shine.

In major U.S. cities, Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings have spiked during the past 12 months as companies run out of cash and banks come to collect. In Boston, Chapter 11 filings have nearly doubled over the past year to 115 total cases in Boston during the period between January 1 and September 30, 2009, compared to 58 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings during the same period last year, according to a review of filings at the Boston office of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Boston.

Bankruptcy boutiques are in a unique position to cash in on the boom because nationally, there are literally only dozens that focus specifically on business bankruptcies, as opposed to individual bankruptcy filings. Smallfirms that have substantial bankruptcy practices include Craig & Macauley, Hanify & King PC in Boston, Warner Stevens LLP in Fort Worth, Texas and Shaw Gussis Fishman Glantz Wolfson & Towbin in Chicago. While most large law firms have bankruptcy practices, they are conflicted out of handling many

cases because they also work with large financial institutions. The sparse number of boutique bankruptcy firms can also be explained by the fact that the work is cyclical and once the boom arrives, the matters are deeply complex.

Peter Roberts a partner with the bankruptcy law firm Shaw Gussis Fishman Glantz Wolfson & Towbin LLC in Chicago, says his firm began to see an uptick in work about six months ago for the types of companies the firm works with, which tends to be smaller to middle market businesses. In Chicago, Chapter 11 filings have more than doubled to 241 during the first three quarters of 2009, compared to 96 during the same period last year, according to U.S. Bankruptcy Court filings.

A survey of the nation’s top 250 law firms shows they collectively shed 5,259 lawyers in the past year, a drop of 4 percent.

The drop is the largest since the National Law Journal started collecting the information in 1978. The survey has recorded only two other declines—a drop of less than 1 percent in 1993, and a 1 percent drop in 1992, according to a National Law Journal story on the results.

The number of associates at the large firms dropped by 8.7 percent, while the number of partners increased by slightly less than 1 percent, the story says. The number of lawyers in the “other” category, including of counsel and staff lawyers, dropped by 8.9 percent.

The numbers indicate a law firm strategy of saving partners, according to law firm consultant Ward Bower of Altman Weil. “The cuts made were done primarily to preserve workloads for partners," he told the National Law Journal. "It suggests that work done by partners is work that associates could do.”

The law firm with the largest percentage reduction in lawyers was Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. It lost 168 lawyers, a decline of 26.4 percent, according to the article. The firm that lost the most lawyers in raw numbers was Latham & Watkins. It shrunk by 444 lawyers, a decline of 19.1 percent.

The largest law firm, according to the survey, is Baker & McKenzie, with 3,949 lawyers.

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review the case of a Montgomery County man condemned for shooting a woman and dumping her body in a lake so he could steal her red convertible.

Michael James “Romeo” Perry was convicted of the slaying of 50-year-old Sandra Stotler during a burglary of her home near Lake Conroe eight years ago.

The 27-year-old Perry also was a suspect but never was charged in the slayings of Stotler’s 16-year-old son, Adam, and an 18-year-old friend, Jeremy Richardson.

Perry was driving Adam Stotler’s SUV when he was arrested following a police shootout and says a confession he made to police is untrue.

He does not have an execution date.

The Supreme Court is considering whether sentencing a juvenile to life in prison with no chance of parole is cruel and unusual punishment, particularly if the crime is less serious than homicide.

The cases being heard Monday involve two Florida convicts. Joe Sullivan was sent away for life for raping an elderly woman when he was 13. Terrance Graham was implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17.

Graham, now 22, and Sullivan, now 33, are in Florida prisons, which hold more than 70 percent of juvenile defendants locked up for life for crimes other than homicide.

Lawyers for Graham and Sullivan argue that it is a bad idea to render a final judgment about people so young.

Chinese state media says an initial group of nine Uighurs have been executed for taking part in July's deadly ethnic rioting in the country's far west.

The China News Service reported Monday that the nine were put to death recently but gave no specific date or other details.

The executions followed a review of the verdicts by the Supreme People's Court as required by law, it said.

The nine were convicted of committing murder and other crimes during the riots that left nearly 200 people dead in China's worst ethnic violence in decades.

Hundreds were rounded up in the wake of the unrest in Xinjiang province. The news service said another 20 people were indicted Monday on charges related to the deaths of 18 people and other crimes.