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Business method patents protect some very important things in your business.

Since the Supreme Court s decision in 1998 to grant patents based on business methods, the Patent and Trademark Office has been inundated with applications of this type. There is currently a four-year wait for patent application approvals.

Before 1998, it was normally the assumption that a method of doing business could not be patented, and only a few property protections were in place. But in 1998, a landmark case between Signature Financial Group and State Street Bank and Trust, handed down a decision that a patent could be obtained based on a method of doing business. The dispute between these two companies involved a way to calculate

concerning mutual funds, and the Supreme Court agreed that a particular method for calculating them could be patented under a business method patent.

As the name implies, business method patents refers to the method or the way in which the company does business. Business method patents are not a new major category of patents like plant or design patents, but is instead a type of utility patent. Patents for business methods belong to the same family of utility patents that are granted for new electronic equipment, or pharmaceutical products. The business method patent is classified at the Patent Office as a Data processing patent (in the) financial, cost, management, or business determination .

For an example of a business

method patent, consider a web site or company that invents a new way of advertising for customers on the World Wide Web.

Business method patent applications have exploded with e-commerce and the Internet. If an e-commerce company can continually generate a profit with a new technique and can also prevent their competitors from using this method for at least seventeen years, then e-commerce of this sort becomes very attractive to many entrepreneurs. Previously, business methods on the internet were fair game for anyone who figured out how to implement them. With a business method patent in place, this changes dramatically!

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