Every day thousands of insurance organizations in the U.S. underwrite risks, pay claims, collect premium, and engage in a variety of activities that are critical to their ability to conduct business. Many of these same organizations have invested millions of dollars in new systems that theyve either built themselves or licensed through vendors to improve their processes and give them a competitive edge.

What if one day there came a knock at the door and someone else claimed to own that core process or expensive new system? What if that party could force a company to pay for the right to use that system or business processor worse, file an infringement suit and collect millions of dollars in damages?A few years ago, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision to uphold business methods patents that include computer software as the embodiment of business methods. That combined with the dot-com frenzy of the late 90s led to the filing and granting of patents that impact the processes and technologies of the insurance industry. In fact, on a percentage basis, the insurance segment is one of the faster-growing classes for patent applications and issued patents.

For nearly 200 years, from the opening of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) in the late 1700s until 1990, only 10 patents were issued in the insurance classification, with another 21 granted between 1990 and 1996. Since 1996, the USPTO has granted 156 additional patents with nearly 300 patent applications currently pending review.