Pension Protection Act Blog

The ABA Law Journal recently published an article about patenting legal strategies. The article, by Steve Seidenberg, was published in the May edition and it titled Crisis Pending: Can a Patent on Legal Strategy Prevent a Client From Taking Your Advice? The Courts May Soon Decide.

For retirement plans, an idea crops up and pretty soon it becomes common - such as cross-tested profit sharing plans using individual classification. Or think about the first guy who came up with an age-weighted design in his plan document. With the Pension Protection Act creating so many possibilities for hybrid plan designs, I thought it would be fun to check the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

The U.S. PTO has a handy tool which permits searching existing patents as well as pending applications for certain terms. Using that tool, I did a quick search of issued patents using the search term “ERISA” and found 36 patents. A quick review of those patents found most of them involved some type of computer-implemented data-processing method, and were not just pure plan designs.

A quick search of patent applications using the search term “ERISA” found 92 applications. One of the applications, Pub. App. No. 20070055605 filed August 28, 2006, involves cash balance plan designs. A quick search of “cash balance” and “defined benefit” found 9 pending applications. A quick search of “Pension Protection Act” only finds two applications, which is disappointing while at the same time simply reflects the probable inevitability of the designs.

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