THE NEXT BRAVE NEW WORLD - INSURANCE PATENTS: According to Risk & Insurance, patenting insurance policies and other financial vehicles is a growing trend. Insurers, investment bankers and money managers are patenting aspects of policies and their administration, pricing and underwriting, as well as innovative financial products and services.
The trend could change the insurance industry, which has traditionally been a follow-the-leader market.
Since 1976, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued 404 patents using the word "insurance" in a filing; using the same criteria, 1,149 patent applications have been published at the PTO Web site since 2001.
It would seem from this that the insurance world is starting to heat up to patents (welcome!). I've noticed the same thing, where institutional insurance companies have been asking lots of questions and are starting to stockpile patents in their portfolios. However, I have noticed that there is still a lot of confusion regarding the patent system, especially in terms of "OK, I have a patent - now what?" Well good people, get out there enforce it!
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
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I've seen the same increase in my business; insurnace companies requesting novelty and state of the art searches. In time with more insurance patents issuing, I expect to see a similar rise in requests for validity and invalidity research.
There is a publication called the "Insurance IP Bulletin" that comes out every other month that reviews the latest developments in insurance patents. The latest issue is here:
http://www.marketsandpatents.com/IPB-12152005.mht
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