The uninvited guest: Patents on Wall Street

Abstract

Academic research could help to understand whether patenting will encourage or discourage innovation, change the nature of financial innovation, encourage more innovation by smaller players, or change the competitive/cooperative interactions among financial service firms.In part, this yet-to-be completed work will simply build upon the extensive body of work in the industrial organization field on patenting.However, trying to understand what-if anything-is different about the financial services industry, and the implications for protection of intellection property and the nature of competition, is likely to be a fertile area for future work.--Peter Tufano (2002: 37). 1.How Did We Get Here?Up until a few years ago, State Street Bank was just another big bank in Boston.But in 1998, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals used a patent case filed by the bank to transform the law concerning what is patentable.From now on, the bank's name will be irrevocably linked to a landmark case.Like Linda Brown of "Brown vs. Board of Education" fame, or Ernesto Miranda, who lent his name to the famous Miranda Warning ("You have the right to remain silent . .."),