Business-method patents should be an integral part of
strategic planning for banks and other organizations in the
financial sector. Typically covering services offered over the
internet or to web-based back-office operations, business-method
patents can be used to exclude rivals from markets or to generate
significant amounts of licensing revenue. As such, they are tools
that no financial institution can nowadays afford to overlook. But
talk to practitioners working in this area and you will find that
all too often this is exactly what happens. European institutions
are by far the most neglectful of their interests.
There has been a surge of US interest in business-method patents
since the landmark State Street&Trust Co vs Signature Financial
Group Inc case was decided by the US Federal Circuit Appeals Court
in 1998. The court held that a Signature data-processing system,
which took the form of a computerized accounting system that
managed a mutual fund investment operation, should...
