Last week, I filed my second patent. My first one happened back in my Silicon Valley startup days, and doing it again was the last thing I expected after making a move to NYC and starting to work for banks. Plus, there’s always that added challenge of doing something a second time — as they say, “the first time is a novelty, the second time is reality.”
A major contributing factor in what happened is definitely the shift in mentality and attitude towards the innovation in the world of finance, which is evident among the banks in particular.
One part is due to the business methods becoming patentable a decade ago. That caused a substantial growth of patent submission numbers.
The second, more obvious factor is the embrace of hi-tech across all financial institutions.
It’s amazing to see healthy competition between the banks in the race for top patent numbers, proudly announcing having the “most U.S. patents” in the country.
Interestingly, finding the actual statistical data on the number of patents per organization is close to impossible unless you’re purchasing reports from analytical agencies. The publicly available stats position Capital One at the top of banks with 10,315 patents, with Bank Of America following closely with 7,422.
Even more intriguing is the data on patent rejections that demonstrates the competition among top contenders in the field. Basically this data shows how many patents from other organizations were rejected due to existing patents. For example, Capital One caused 110 Bank Of America patents to get rejected:
Conversely, Bank Of America prevented 173 patents to be granted to Capital One.
Overall, I’m excited about this achievement, grateful to Capital One for the opportunity, and hopeful that more financial organizations come to appreciate that innovation is key to success in this new, fast-paced and tech-driven world. The “too big to fail” approach no longer holds, as we have witnessed many times in past 20 years.
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