The US Supreme Court will decide on the controversial software patent protection issue, which would define which type of software eligible to be patented.

The ruling might turn out to be a key factor to settle on under what conditions firms can be sued for using certain software within their products.

The latest move to review comes after a federal appeals court ruling that an abstract idea is not patentable just for the reason that it is linked to a computer system.

US Supreme Court said it would hear a case brought by Alice, which owns a patent for PC that assists in carrying out financial transactions and challenged by CLS Bank International.

Tech firms including Google, HP, Facebook and Netflix had already revealed their support for the issue by seeking the court to hear the WildTangent case.

Last week, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington questioned Google’s claim that Oracle does not own copyright over some portions of the Java programming language.

Oracle claims that Google has illegally incorporated some of the features of Java into its popular Android and Android infringes its copyrights by structuring 37 Java APIs.

Oracle sought the court to allow it pursue the case against Google claiming a compensation of over $1bn for developing its Android operating system using ‘copied code’.