<i>Bank of America has won the most patents among U.S. banks in recent years, with an active portfolio of more than 3,000.</i><p>I really have a problem with the kind of terminology used around obtaining a patent.  You&#x27;ll often see things like the above, &quot;won a patent&quot; or &quot;awarded a patent&quot;.  Late night infomercials seem to prefer saying that something is good&#x2F;worth having because it was &quot;awarded a patent&quot;.  As if it is some kind race (despite that the way the patent system is structured, it often actually is a race, <i>sigh</i>), with two, or more, parties going head to head and there&#x27;s some objective measurement that we&#x27;d all agree on that legitimizes the point count and the final outcome, like it&#x27;s the Superbowl or the World Series.  These 3,000 patents that BoA has aren&#x27;t populated with stuff that someone else was also trying to patent at the same time, 99% of software patents are for things that no one else thinks about patenting (because they didn&#x27;t think of them because they are highly specific to a business and are just obtained to pad the portfolio; or because others think they are too trivial or non-unique enough to patent (the situations the TFA describes as the banks being in traditionally).  The terms &quot;won&quot; and &quot;awarded&quot; implies some level of worthiness beyond just being the first to speak.<p>No one would claim you&#x27;d &quot;won&quot; your drivers license because you went in, filled out some paperwork the right way, and was able to satisfy some minimal testing requirements (both knowledge and skill&#x2F;experience).  And obtaining a patent is almost exactly that same case.