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Washington Mutual Patents the Bank Branch
ewhac writes "Okay, so it's not a bank branch per se, but a particular kind of bank branch -- one that has play areas for kids, serves coffee and popcorn, and has kiosks instead of teller windows. Washington Mutual has dubbed this branch design, "Occasio" (a generic Latin word meaning, "favorable opportunity," and which has probably been trademarked). The San Francisco Chronicle reports that it may be the first time the USPTO has awarded a patent for the design of a retail store/presence."
Here, here, here, and here. Washington Mutual owns all of them.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
I;ve got mod points but rahter than mod you as an idiot, I've got to respond.
I am no fan of the USPTO, and think that some of their more recent patents have been ludicrous, but WaMu's patent is not what you are talking about. Did you even read the fucking article? (fuck acronyms)
Borders does not have a concierge (at least none of the one's I've been to). Neither does Waldenbook's, B. Dalton's, etc. Unless the register clerk counts, which they don't.
Yes, Borders has a coffee shop, but WaMu doesn't. Serving coffee and having a coffee shop where one can get a danish & coffee while reading a book, and serving coffee to someone while they wait to speak to someone else about opening up a loan isn't being copy-catting. It's called customer-service.
That, my friend, is what this patent is about. The woman who came up with this idea recognized that what really sets banks apart from one another is the level of service they provide. All banks have CD's, all banks have Money Market Accounts, but I sure as hell won't get offered coffee if I walk into a Wachovia. I might, if I walk into WaMu.
Personally, I don't like the new design. It reminds me of Starbucks -- not because of the coffee -- but because of the "chic'ness" and trendiness of the place. Plus, Starbucks reminds me of paying too damn much for a shitty cup of coffee.
Maybe that's why I bank with a credit union. I prefer to use the extra money I save each month off bank fees and increased interest in my savings accounts to brew my own damn coffee.
I don't understand how the USPTO can give out this patent. The design of a store is typically protected by trade dress. The Supreme Court has explicity stated that you're not supposed to be able patent protection if something is normally covered by trademark law. Whomever approved this needs to be canned.
3 pieces of prior art spring to mind:
ATMs in convenience stores are quite common, at least here in NZ. (I assume "kiosk" means an ATM maybe with more functionality). Same combo of coffee/food/banking, just different owner.
Internet banking in coffee shops.
My friend's bank in Cambridge UK is combined with coffee shop, has a play area, and has ATMs inside. Also has human tellers.
Maybe the popcorn bit is novel?
There's prior art on the bank layout - we've had these kind of banks (coffee, stuff to occupy kids, particular layout) in the UK for a while. I think the first time I recall seeing them advertised was at least 2 years back.
Patents aren't just awarded for "uniqueness". Seriously, this is stupid. It's a room layout, for god's sake. Patents are about stopping competition, plain and simple - how the hell are customers better off now that this bank can stop other banks raising their service levels as high to remain competitive?
I'm sorry, but you don't understand what patents are for.
From the USPTO Website:
One could adequately assume that the Patent Examiner saw the method by which WaMu designed their retail branch facilitated the process of the retail customer depositing money or opening a new account more efficiently, and with greater customer-service.
It's not patentable. The USPTO fucked up. Layers will make money from this. Film at 11:00. So what else is new?
"Last I checked, the USPTO didn't have jurisdiction over Canadian patents"
You're right, but, in general, prior art anywhere in the world (subject to some limitations) can prevent the grant of a patent in the U.S., event hough U.S. doesn't have "jurisdiction" over patents and art elsewhere.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
There used to be a tax break for being a real mutual loan association, but that disappeared under Reagan, and most of the mutuals "privatized", screwing the depositors out of their equity ownership.
This occurred fairly close to Yankee Candle's headquarters, at a mall in Enfield, Connecticut (about an hour away). If I recall correctly, the smaller store changed its layout rather than fight it out in court, and I think it eventually went out of business, but I don't live there anymore so am not certain.
A friend of mine used to bank at Washington Mutual for a long time. One day, he strolled into the bank and saw, to his horror, that instead of a traditional bank with teller windows and whatnot, there were these retarded kiosks scattered all over the place and rotated every which way.
The outcome of this "innovative" business practice? He immediately closed his accounts and took his money to Wells Fargo, where a bank still looks like a bank.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of other people had similar responses to this change. This is mostly for psychological reasons: When you go to Disney Land, you want the experience to be exciting. On the other hand, when you go to the bank, where you store your financial assets that you work hard to earn, you want the place to be as unexciting as it can be. Excitement means the bank is unstable and is going to lose your money, leaving you in the streets. Lack of excitement shows stability, maturity, confidence, and security. I believe this is what most people want when they choose a bank. Not a bunch of weird kiosks turned every which way.
A play area for children isn't a bad idea, because kids always get restless and start running around, causing all kinds of noise and whatnot.
Oh yeah, and one more rant on Washington Mutual. My mother had a bank account there. One day, she deposited a bunch of checks. The bank took the money, but did not increase her accounts. No matter how much proof she produced, they refused to credit her account, claiming that what she produced was not good enough proof. In effect, the bank had stolen her money: About 300 dollars of it. She closed her accounts there and went to a different bank. Ever since that event, and more so after my friend told me about the kiosks, I have been staying as far away from Washington Mutual as I can.
There is so much misinformation about patents being circulated that I suppose it is not very surprising that a reporter quoting "experts" would wrongly assert that the Washington Mutual patent is the first patent for a design of a retail store/presence. However, this wrong assertion is inexcusable in this case, because a pointer to the contrary evidence appears on the front page of the patent itself. In other words, he didn't RTFP. (And I think the term RTFP should be cited often in discussions about patents here.)
The "References" cited on this or any patent are NOT references SUPPORTING the patent (as would be the case for footnote or endnote references for a journal article). They are references cited by the Examiner either to TEAR DOWN the patent or LIMIT ITS COVERAGE. A "patent reference" is a reference that happens to be a patent. Therefore, if one were looking for a previously-issed patent for a retail store/presence, one might surmise that a good place to start might be the list of patent references on the front cover of the Washington Mutual patent.
The very FIRST patent reference cited (at least in order by patent number), U.S. Patent No. 1,242,872, can be downloaded from either the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (http://www.uspto.gov) or from the European Patent Office (http://www.espacenet.com). However, this patent is so old that nobody would have thought to digitize the text when it was issued, so it is available only in image format. It takes special software (in Windows, at least) to view the pages from the USPTO, and not everyone in the States knows about the EPO (which needs only Adobe Acrobat Reader), so my guess is that the reporter never looked at this patent. If he had looked at it, he would have discovered that the USPTO issued a patent for a Self Serving Store to one "C. Saunders" on October 19, 1917 on an application filed on October 21, 1916.
In other words, a patent on a retail/store presence was both filed and issued in the United States during World War I and the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. And that fact would have been apparent had the reporter just bothered to check the patent references cited against the Washington Mutual patent.
Quoting Claim 4 of the 1917-issued patent:
That sounds an awful lot to me like a design of a retail store/presence.
I've been inside one of these. The tellers stand at floating mini-kiosks instead of being inside a secure area. Instead of handing you cash, they hand you a receipt with a code to type into a machine that gives you cash. The tellers all have gigantic smiles and tons of patience and understanding to help the confused customers who expected to walk into a bank. It's actually pretty funny. Turns out we walked in the back door and couldn't see the line on the other side of the mini-kiosks, so we couldn't figure out where to wait without walking around the store a bit.