Patent & Innovation Program

Discover^® Patent & Innovation Program Boosts Invention, Collaboration & Inclusivity

Bruce Clavey experimented with methods to help his publishing team amplify their content but never suspected that his ideas were worth considering for a patent.

Clavey, a senior principal marketing editor at Discover, also did not realize that the company’s Patent & Innovation Program was open to non-engineer participants like him. But then a group of engineering colleagues familiar with his work invited him to bring his ideas to be considered in a patent application. They even helped guide him through the steps in the submission. To his surprise, he enjoyed the entire process. And on top of that, he felt like he belonged to the community of innovators at Discover.

“For me, the experience has been the takeaway, even more so than the potential result of it,” Clavey said. 

Led by the Business Technology and Legal departments, Discover’s Patent & Innovation Program aims to enhance the culture of collaboration and innovation happening across the company while also protecting Discover’s intellectual property. The program offers a streamlined way to identify Discover innovations that are candidates for a potential patent. The process also helps move approved inventions towards the goal of filing a corresponding application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office or a foreign equivalent. 

Employees say the program has helped them understand the benefits of patents and makes it easy to find the right resources to pursue patent protection. Perhaps equally as important, they feel it’s changing the perception that inventing is for a select few, and has enabled new and creative thinking by encouragement. Last year, nearly a quarter of all inventors on filed patent applications were non-engineers.

“Having this process, to me, boosts innovation within Discover,” said Arjun Ravi Kannan, director of data science research at Discover, who is an inventor on a number of filed patent applications. “It’s not just engineering. There are other parts of the business, like ours, that also get encouraged to participate in the process and have our ideas potentially protected.”

Through the Patent & Innovation Program, any Discover employee who believes their idea or innovation is patentable can nominate it for a patent application. The nomination is reviewed by a council of subject matter experts. If approved, the inventor team works with Discover’s Legal department to draft a patent application to be submitted for the government’s approval as an issued patent. Additional incentives to participate in the Program, which include financial incentives, are provided along the way.

The Program also provides opportunities to innovate on behalf of Discover. One way it does this is by regularly bringing together employees from across the company to participate in design thinking workshops to share ideas. No idea or contribution is too small. From there, a team circles back with employees on ideas or inventions that might be good candidates for a patent application.

“Sometimes employees have ideas on how to improve something they’re working on, or they have already created something valuable and protectable to help Discover’s customers without realizing it”, said Doug Scamahorn, an expert innovation design facilitator at Discover.

Lise Noble, a UX and UI distinguished engineer at Discover, is an inventor on multiple patent applications. She believes thinking outside the box and collaborating across business lines leads to innovative solutions.

Noble points to her line of work where designers and engineers work together to create a positive user experience. Seeing the growth of the Patent Program, and the increased participation across the company, has been extraordinary.

“(This program) seems to have really invigorated people,” said Noble. “I think it’s very telling of the digital transformation that’s happening at Discover.”

Ravi Kannan said there is a level of recognition for inventors now that did not exist in the past. A formal, annual dinner celebrates all the employees who filed patent applications or were awarded issued patents in a given year, while also giving them the opportunity to network with Discover leadership. For those in the room, the dinner signifies another level of respect and appreciation.

And for teams like Ravi Kannan’s who spend most of their time with research, the Patent Program provides another way they can measure their contributions. “It is one of the few tangible ways we can promote the work we do, even to our partners, he said. 

Moving forward, the Program will continue to reach out to employees across business units to encourage sharing of their ideas and inventions, no matter how big or small. Clavey sees that approach as the program’s differentiator. 

“It engenders that freedom of thinking that we hold in reserve—sometimes intentionally—because we convince ourselves it’s for someone else to do,” Clavey said. “This is a process of total encouragement.”