
Banks race to beat the patent trolls and Silicon Valley - indus
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-11/disrupting-banks-go-see-what-they-re-doing-at-the-patent-office
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thwarted
_Bank of America has won the most patents among U.S. banks in recent years,
with an active portfolio of more than 3,000._

I really have a problem with the kind of terminology used around obtaining a
patent. You'll often see things like the above, "won a patent" or "awarded a
patent". Late night infomercials seem to prefer saying that something is
good/worth having because it was "awarded a patent". As if it is some kind
race (despite that the way the patent system is structured, it often actually
is a race, _sigh_ ), with two, or more, parties going head to head and there's
some objective measurement that we'd all agree on that legitimizes the point
count and the final outcome, like it's the Superbowl or the World Series.
These 3,000 patents that BoA has aren't populated with stuff that someone else
was also trying to patent at the same time, 99% of software patents are for
things that no one else thinks about patenting (because they didn't think of
them because they are highly specific to a business and are just obtained to
pad the portfolio; or because others think they are too trivial or non-unique
enough to patent (the situations the TFA describes as the banks being in
traditionally). The terms "won" and "awarded" implies some level of worthiness
beyond just being the first to speak.

No one would claim you'd "won" your drivers license because you went in,
filled out some paperwork the right way, and was able to satisfy some minimal
testing requirements (both knowledge and skill/experience). And obtaining a
patent is almost exactly that same case.

~~~
indus
Take a look at one of their recent patent application. A cursory look shows
that it's a "computer system" for transferring money to someone who does not
have a bank account. I'm not an expert in claim analysis, but looks obvious.

[http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...](http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220160027016%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20160027016&RS=DN/20160027016)

~~~
thwarted
Well, that's partly my point. It's obvious to just about everyone else,
including those who submitted the application, so no one else is actually
going to patent this. Because no one is going to submit a patent application,
especially if you're building of a patent portfolio for defensive purposes
it's all speculative and secretive during the phase when you're searching for
things to patent.

So they actually haven't "won" anything. The "won" and "awarded" terminology,
at least in the vernacular and the way these terms are exploited for talking
about obtaining patents, implies some kind of objective assessment of
worthiness. There's nothing worthy in obviousness.

The test of obviousness is set by the patent examiners, which is not a high
bar to reach. The reasons patent examiners are not able to meaningful
(dis)qualify patent applications on obviousness is frequently discussed
(incentives that encourage issuing rather than rejecting; overwork at the
patent office; unqualified, not versed in the art, of the area being
examined). So in effect, the patent application is "awarded" a patent for
"winning" the task of gaming the patent system. These terms attribute meaning
to a meaningless process.

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dmritard96
One more reason patents feel like a waste of everyones time. Limiting consumer
choice by claiming ownership to payment methods is only going to slow down
progress. I wish they would compete on actual experience and features rather
than rights to the market.

~~~
gukov
Patents maybe made sense a century ago with much fewer people and companies on
the planet. Oh, and no internet. Today it's just a detriment to human
progress.

~~~
o_nate
I agree. Every article like this just makes me hate the current patent system
more. What a waste of human resources to document every little business
process and generate tons of paperwork just to build up a portfolio to fight
off patent trolls. I don't know if a moratorium on new patents is what we
need, but something needs to change.

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vonklaus
This is excellent news. Banks will spend time and money on hiring consultants
and lawyers to patent meaningless buzzwords. If for some bizarre reason the
U.S. doesn't reform patents by the time these patents are granted (a long
process) they will be devoid of any value except protection.

I actually think some within these banks hate the patent system as much as
startups but are obligated to due this as a matter of professional security.
It is just game theory 101, most institutions would be better off without
dumping resources into lawyers, litigation and goodwill writedown, but if just
one other institution does, they could potentially all be skewered.

I am working at a tiny fintech company and we are trying to do business with
"banks". Which I found out pretty much immeadiately, are in much worse shape
than I believed.

They all have these fiserv and digital insight systems, CRMs , front end
providers, state regulation, federal regulation, lead generation, analytics
software, 3rd party clearing software.

A fucking mess.

Radius Bank is one that looks particularly cool and similar to Simple or
something, an online bank. The fact is that, to the extent banking stays
within the current monetary system, small vertically integrated technology
driven companies will be able to provide more, adapt faster and just dominate.

Which is why I am not worried about the patent scenario. If a big bank wants
to patent blockchain, and then hire consultants to hire a CTO to hire a team
to build it they will discover 5 years from now that not only is it hard to
do, but it is tough to sue a decentralized network.

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hackuser
If this causes the financial industry to back patent reform, it would be a
good thing. If it causes the financial industry to acquire many patents and
become vested in the current system, it will slow patent reform and give yet
more power to Wall Street.

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mchahn
It seems to me that it is just a matter of time-scale. If patent lifetimes
were made shorter to match internet-time it would make a lot of sense. Five or
ten years advantage is worth a lot in internet time.

