Industries

Financial Services

The financial services industry is, by some measures, the largest single industry in the US economy today, constituting 22.3% of the market capitalization of the S&P 500, more than any other sector. Nor has it been any stranger to innovation.

Businesses and consumers alike have more access today than ever before, to a wider variety of ways to borrow and to invest money, to pay or to be paid, and to turn assets into income or vice versa. Many of the new products of the financial services industry themselves contain protectable intellectual property belonging to the firms that invented, refined, or first marketed them successfully.

“Business methods” (such as Amazon’s “1-Click” ordering) can often be patented, granting firms nimble enough to do so a competitive distinction in the eyes of their customers. Indeed, the first business method patent ever upheld covered a software program that made mutual fund asset allocation calculations.

Since then, thousands of business method patent applications have been filed annually. However, the law surrounding the patentability of business methods is in flux. In this changing environment, we have the expertise to:

• Help you identify methods of doing business within your own organization that may be patentable
• Draft claims in such a way as to maximize the probability that you will be able to use the patent offensively, to keep competitors from duplicating your methods, and
• Keep you current on the latest developments in this rapidly evolving area.

Could you be sitting on a business method suitable for patent protection? Talk to us; we’ll use our expertise to analyze your portfolio of business methods and advise you—in a highly cost-effective and efficient manner—whether you’re deploying those methods in an optimal manner.