Musings on Banks, Wall Street and Patents on Mortgage Products

Am I the only one who ocassionally amuses himself with the high irony of banking industry lobbyists pressuring Congress and filing Amicus briefs to put the kabosh on business method patents such as patents on mortgage products?   See for example: http://www.patentlyo.com/files/08-964-bank-of-america-et-al.-1.pdf  (thanks to PatentlyO for this link).

While I am at best agnostic on business method patents per se (but bullish on patents for technology that supports a business process), I hardly think anyone can any longer argue with a straight face that slowing down the dissemination of “innovative” ideas like exotic (and highly toxic) mortgage backed securities would be a bad thing. 

Maybe we should require Wall Street to patent their new ideas and have the Government pay to enforce them so that we can limit the damage to our economy from these innovations as much as possible.  Perhaps Wall Street has shown us a new use for patents.

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