Intellectual Property and Financial Markets Competition: A Discussion of Selected Public Policy Issues
Richard Heckinger, Victor Lubasi, Robert Steigerwald
The legal protection of intellectual property in information, business methods or processes and financial technologies has become increasingly important to the financial services industry in recent decades. This paper provides an introductory discussion of the rights arising under U.S. law in these forms of intellectual property. In particular, the authors focus upon the role intellectual property has recently played in the competitive (but also sometimes cooperative) interaction among financial market institutions and identify selected public policy issues relating to this trend, based upon a recent roundtable discussion sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. This discussion draft is distributed as of December 21, 2007, for purposes of review and comment only and will be replaced by a revised draft. Please do not quote this draft without the authors’ permission.
