Patenting tangible products is a move that's been around for quite a while. The relatively new darling of IP is patenting business processes such as advanced statistical techniques. IP attorney Joel Lehrer writes that hedge funds, once strangers to the world of IP, have embraced patent protection to keep key aspects of technology or investment strategies out of their competitors' hands. There's big money in procuring these rights. Of course, there's also the business of filing for these patents and getting them approved...

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