Securities brokerage-cash management system
Merrill Lynch's Cash Management Account — the product that first swept brokerage cash into money-market funds and let you write checks against your portfolio — patented twice, three months apart, in 1980.
Assignee: Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith · Filed 1980-07-29 / 1980-10-22 · Granted 1982-08-24 / 1983-03-15 · Term end (est.) 2000-07-29 / 2000-10-22
Merrill Lynch's Cash Management Account, launched in 1977, was the product that taught a generation of investors that idle brokerage cash didn't have to sit idle: sweep it into a money-market fund overnight, write checks and use a debit card against the balance, get one combined statement. It's such a standard brokerage feature now that it's easy to forget it was ever new.
Merrill filed two related patents covering the mechanics — US4346442 (filed July 29, 1980, granted August 24, 1982) and US4376978 (filed October 22, 1980, granted March 15, 1983) — both titled 'Securities brokerage-cash management system.'
Both expired around the turn of the millennium, in 2000, under the pre-1995 17-years-from-grant rule. By then, sweep accounts and cash-management features were standard across the brokerage industry — the patent's expiration was a formality by the time it actually happened.