Patenting tax ideas.

AuthorRansome, Justin P.

More and more, fox strategies long presumed to be accessible to all practitioners are being claimed to be exclusive to their potent holders. Arguably, such patents hinder tax advisers' ability to provide tax advice and taxpayers' ability to comply with tax laws. This article examines this phenomenon and the actions the AICPA is taking to stop it.

One of the greatest challenges tax practitioners face in providing quality tax services to clients is to keep abreast of the ever-changing complexity of the tax law. Added to this challenge is the burden of determining whether the chosen advice is another party's exclusive property. While this may seem absurd, in the real world of tax consulting, tax advisers must now contend with certain practitioners and companies seeking patents to protect their exclusive right to use various tax planning ideas and techniques they claim to have developed.

Tax practitioners may be surprised to find that tax strategies they have used routinely in practice are now patented and unavailable for use without the patent holder's permission. The trend of patenting tax strategies is on the rise. This article explores tax-strategy patenting. It provides an overview of the issue and discusses the AICPA's concerns and activities to keep its members informed, as well as its attempts to seek a legislative remedy that will stem the tide of these types of patents.

Background

The Patent Act of 1952 (1) provided that patents may be granted for innovations that are useful, novel and nonobvious. Under 35 USC Section 271, a patent gives its holder the exclusive right to make, use and sell the patented idea. The consequences of infringing a patent can be substantial. The remedies for patent infringement under 35 USC Sections 283 and 284 include injunctive relief and money damages equal to lost profits or a reasonable royalty. Money damages can be tripled in cases of willful infringement, as authorized under 35 USC Section 284; under 35 USC Section 285, attorneys' fees can be awarded to the prevailing party in exceptional cases. Issued patents are presumed valid; under 35 USC Section 282, an accuser must overcome this presumption with clear and convincing evidence to invalidate a patent. Even if an accused is not found liable, defending a lawsuit can be costly. (2)

In 1998, the Federal Circuit, in State Street Bank & Trust, (3) held that business methods are patentable. Since this decision, patents for business methods have flourished. In some cases, these patents involve processes that would seem to be neither novel nor nonobvious (i.e., other reasonably intelligent people would come to the same or a similar conclusion when confronted with the same or similar issue).

Recently, the Supreme Court held (4) that the long-standing test used by the lower courts to determine whether an idea was nonobvious was not being applied correctly (and, in fact, was being applied too strictly). The opinion stated that for an idea to be nonobvious, it must be (1) one that would not have occurred to persons of ordinary skill and intelligence in the field of endeavor involved; or (2) previously available knowledge that would have caused a person of ordinary intelligence to affirmatively believe that the idea would not work. Since this decision was just handed down, it remains to be seen what effect it will have on the proliferation of patents for business methods in the future.

The patenting of business methods has recently crept into the practice of tax planning. At press time, 60 tax-strategy patents (TSPs) have been granted; 86 are pending. (5) There may be additional TSPs; about 10% are generally unpublished, because applicants can elect not to publish a patent if no protection is being sought in a foreign jurisdiction. (6) Also, it can take up to 18 months for a patent application to be published and listed on the USPTO website. As discussed below, many of these patents deal with planning techniques routinely used by tax practitioners in delivering tax services to clients.

Reasons for Concern

SOGRAT patent: The primary catalyst for the concern of the AICPA and other tax practitioners was a 2006 infringement suit over the "SOGRAT patent." Awarded by the USPTO on May 20, 2003, to Robert C. Slane of Wealth Transfer Group LLC, the SOGRAT patent describes an estate planning technique that uses grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs) to transfer nonqualified stock options (NQSOs) to younger generations, with few or no gift tax consequences. (7)

GRATs are permitted under Sec. 2702 and the regulations thereunder. Many estate planners are familiar with, and routinely use, GRATs to shift a variety of different types of assets to younger generations. Thus, it came as quite a surprise to many estate planners when an article touting the estate tax benefits of placing NQSOs into a GRAT noted that the technique had been patented by one of that article's authors. (8) This surprise grew into concern when the patent holder instituted the above-mentioned patent infringement suit against a taxpayer who implemented the technique without its permission.

Warning letters: As previously stated, money damages can be tripled in cases of willful infringement (which requires knowledge of the patent). Some patent holders have resorted to mail campaigns and/or press releases touting their patents and warning other tax practitioners that they may be infringing on said patents. For example, one patent infringement warning letter addressed a method for financing future needs of an individual or future intentions on the death of such person, and a method for investing long-term assets of tax-exempt charities. The letter noted that the allowed claims in the patent involve investments used for charitable remainder trusts, pooled-income funds, charitable gift annuities, charitable lead trusts and permanent endowment funds. (9)

Part of this patent resembles the facts and results of Letter Ruling 9009047. (10) and TAM 9825001. (11) In those rulings, the IRS permitted a net-income charitable remainder unitrust to invest in a tax-deferred annuity contract for the purposes of controlling the timing and amount of income distributions and to otherwise provide a guaranteed death benefit payable to the charitable remainder interest holder. The patent purports to achieve a similar result through the use of tax-deferred arrangements.

The patent holder also sent a press release to the Planned Giving Design Center (PGDC), a professional organization that provides advice on charitable planning and taxation. An article (12) written by the PGDC's editor noted that the letter ruling and TAM are well known to members of the insurance community in particular, "which have since facilitated thousands of annuity...

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