logo

Against Monopoly

defending the right to innovate

Monopoly corrupts. Absolute monopoly corrupts absolutely.





Copyright Notice: We don't think much of copyright, so you can do what you want with the content on this blog. Of course we are hungry for publicity, so we would be pleased if you avoided plagiarism and gave us credit for what we have written. We encourage you not to impose copyright restrictions on your "derivative" works, but we won't try to stop you. For the legally or statist minded, you can consider yourself subject to a Creative Commons Attribution License.


back

A Patent for an Index Fund Method?

Robert D. Arnott, Chairman of Research Affiliates, wants to patent a method for a stock index fund based on certain fundamental measures such as revenue, etc. Here is the article.

The problem is that fundamentally-weighted index funds (such as Wisdom Tree's) have been around for some time. More importantly, there is tons of prior art that this method is founded on, such as the research of Fama and French.

Question: if he files a patent on this, can anyone file a brief with the USPTO opposing it? Inquiring minds want to know.


Comments

You might want to contact Polly Shouse or Thomas Loeb at Mellon Capital Management. Basically, they are the inventors of the index fund industry. Look at www.mcm.com. We were doing this stuff back in the early '80s - I was a consultant working with Polly at MCM on the development of index fund balancing algorithms then.

Thanks for the update. Did the work by Polly, Thomas and you predate the Vanguard Index Funds? Did Jack Bogle make a contribution? Were there any other forerunners in the development of index funds?
I would use the index fund regardless and should they sue, I would send them prior artwork, if they continue with the suit, I would let the lawyers handle it and ultimately collect on legal fees if possible.

Submit Comment

Blog Post

Name:

Email (optional):

Your Humanity:

Prove you are human by retyping the anti-spam code.
For example if the code is unodosthreefour,
type 1234 in the textbox below.

Anti-spam Code
QuatroSixCincoCinco:


Post



   

Most Recent Comments

IP is not a joke Couldn't it be used under the fair use

Goldman does in AIG, you, and me Predatory Lending is a major contributor to the economic turmoil we are currently

Common Sense Seth - I'm not sure how your comment @ 5:57pm casts any illumination on your earlier position. If I

Lessig: Congress is broken and Obama has failed Anon, state granted monopolies are effectively licenses for corporations to collect taxes on

Lessig: Congress is broken and Obama has failed It does seem strange to me that when we are faced with the possibility of a 23 trillion dollar

The Patent, Copyright, Trademark, and Trade Secret Horror Files Fred, I recognise that 'natural monopoly' may have a more specialised meaning for economists, and

Lessig: Congress is broken and Obama has failed Fred, I'm doing something immediately. I'm working on the Contingency Market. this is something

The Patent, Copyright, Trademark, and Trade Secret Horror Files @Crosbie: I agree *natural monopolies* do exist, despite any tendency for SK and Bill Stepp to shut

Lessig: Congress is broken and Obama has failed I thank John Bennett for this post, and for the quality of his posts here in general. I've been

IP is not a joke Well, thank *god* that people are looking out for the interests of the "We Are The World"