Where Does State Street Lead? First Look at Finance Patents, 1971-2000

The paper empirically examines patents for financial formulas and methods, whose patentability was recently confirmed in the litigation between State Street Bank and Trust and Signature Financial Group. Patent filings by academics have been very infrequent, which appears to be a consequence of a lack of awareness or interest on the part of faculty members, rather than any fundamental unsuitability of their research for patenting