Bank of America has topped its own record by filing 722 patent applications during 2020, with automation-related patents spanning company divisions. In 2020, the U.S. Patent Office granted the bank 444 patents.

Other banks that filed automation-related patents last year include the $421.6 billion Capital One and the $1.9 trillion Wells Fargo Corporation.

Nineteen percent of the $2.8 trillion Bank of America’s patents are related to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, a company spokesperson told Bank Automation News. Both technologies can be key to automation and advanced analytics capabilities. The patents were filed in multiple areas, including customer impact, network security, production environment, stability and software development.

A few of the Bank of America automation-specific patents include:

• A patent designed to improve customer experience by automatically performing check validation, which improves payment accuracy and facilitates secure transactions;
• A patent that will maintain production environment stability by using robotic process automation to remediate errors in a computing environment; and
• An automation patent that will test source code changes during application development, improving the software development process.

Overall, Bank of America ranked 108th on the 2020 Intellectual Property Owner Association’s annual list of organizations, which noted the bank’s number of patents was up 7% from the prior year.

But Bank of America wasn’t the only bank filing automation-related patents last year. Capital One Financial Corp. ranked 60th on the list of 300, with 747 patents granted, up 20% from the prior year. A BAN search for automation-related patents for the bank revealed, among others:

• A patent for systems and methods for facilitating transactions like bill paying by using augmented reality and virtual reality headsets; and
• A patent that would use data from a smart device — such as a watch, fitness device, etc. — to train machine learning algorithms and “improve context and conversation flow between a chatbot and a user.”

Meanwhile, Wells Fargo Corporation ranked at 173rd and had 277 patents granted, up 82% over the previous year. Among its automation-related patents are:

• A security-related patent for cloud compliance drift automation and root cause analysis tool. Drift, a change that occurs in a cloud environment after it’s provisioned, is a leading cause of data breaches.
• A patent of systems and methods for providing electronic infrastructure for paper documents. For example, this patent might apply to an embedded chip device that receives an electronic signature from a device communicating with the chip. The patent calls for the chip to then store that information and authentication information, like metadata.

Topping the Intellectual Property Owner Association list was technology giant IBM, with 9,435 patents filed. Mastercard ranked 143rd with 325 patents, up 21% from last year; and Visa ranked 204th with 238, down 2% from last year.

Bank Automation Ignite, on April 13-14, is the event for inspiring automation initiatives and investment in financial services. At the virtual event, financial services professionals can discover new use cases and technologies that are accelerating automation in banking. Learn more and register at www.BankAutomationIgnite.com.