Business-Method patents strike again.  Fortune, via CNN Money, writes about the tax patent trend.

In recent years, the Patent Office has begun granting patents to people who claim to have invented novel ways of avoiding taxes. The trend is part of a larger explosion in the number of patents granted to financial firms for so-called "business method" innovations.  So far, 48 patents for tax reduction strategies have been granted and at least another 61 applications are pending.