The Snider Investment method, which has an annual rate of return of
13% has a patent pending.  At least that's what it says here:
http://themethod.kimsnider.com/income.php

Please provide me with the patent number.  I'm curious about how an
investment method is patented, especially this one.

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 03 Sep 2005 05:42 PDT

There is a type of patent known as a "business method" patent, so I
suppose it is possible for a stock investment method to receive a
patent.

However, a search of the US Patent Applications database did not turn
up any applications submitted by Kim Snider.

Beyond that search, it would be very difficult to uncover a patent
application without knowing a bit more about it -- who submitted the
patent, when, etc.

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by jaseaux-ga on 03 Sep 2005 13:11 PDT

That's a good question.  I'm afraid I don't know the answer.  The only
clues I can offer come from the http://www.kimsnider.com website.  It
may describe enough of the method to be able to locate the patent that
way.  This page: http://kimskorner.kimsnider.com/company.php includes
a Bio for a gentleman that is supposedly the co-inventor on the patent
application.

If I discover they have lied about having a patent for the method, how
can trust anything about them or their method?  I need the patent
number if it exists.

Thanks,

-Harry Winston

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Request for Question Clarification by denco-ga on 03 Sep 2005 19:25 PDT

Howdy Harry,

If the patent had been applied for within the past 18 months, then it will
most likely not show on a USPTO search.  You might want to contact the Kim
Snider organization and ask them when the patent application was filed.

USPTO "Frequently Asked Questions About Patents" page.
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/faq.htm

"1. What do the terms ?patent pending? and ?patent applied for? mean?

A. They are used by a manufacturer or seller of an article to inform the
public that an application for patent on that article is on file in the
United States Patent and Trademark Office. The law imposes a fine on those
who use these terms falsely to deceive the public.

2. Is there any danger that the USPTO will give others information contained
in my application while it is pending?

A. Most patent applications filed on or after November 29, 2000, will be
published 18 months after the filing date of the application, or any earlier
filing date relied upon under Title 35, United States Code. Otherwise, all
patent applications are maintained in the strictest confidence until the
patent is issued or the application is published. After the application has
been published, however, a member of the public may request a copy of the
application file. After the patent is issued, the Office file containing the
application and all correspondence leading up to issuance of the patent is
made available in the Files Information Unit for inspection by anyone, and
copies of these files may be purchased from the Office."

From the Kim Snider "Testimonials" page.
http://themethod.kimsnider.com/testimonials.php

"We have removed names to protect the privacy of our clients, however, a
number of them have generously agreed to speak with anyone that is considering
the workshop, but would like further references. If you would like us to put
you in contact with existing clients ..."

My colleague pafalafa-ga is absolutely right that until the USPTO publishes
the patent then it would very difficult to learn anything about the it.

Looking Forward, denco-ga - Google Answers Researcher

---

Clarification of Question by jaseaux-ga on 04 Sep 2005 17:38 PDT

I think there are many instances where the USPTO website is out of
date, and the FAQ is one of them.

Using the USPTO search feature:
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.html

You can search by the application date using this structure:
APD/5/$/2005, which would return all applications submited  in the
month of May, 2005.  As you can see, the site returns many
applications from January - May of 2005.  I'm quite sure this
application was filed before 2005.

Regardless of the patent status or anything else, this thing is a
SCAM! Don't waste your time and money on these people.

"Spend less than 2 hours a month!"
"Consistent 13% returns, with less risk than government bonds!"

Should make you pause to reflect: There's no such thing as a free
lunch. If her method was such a high return, low risk success,
everyone would have long since piled into the strategy, thus
elminating the chance for future gains.

There seem to be many satisfied customers.  Try as I might, I have
been unable to find a dissatisfied customer.  You know how the web is,
if someone dropped $3k on a seminar and felt ripped off, Google would
be able to find it somewhere.

Also, the individual that teaches the course has a very successful
radio program.  Typically, people that run scams try to stay out of
the lime light.

These two points make me think it could be legit.

Do you know that this person has "thousands of satisfied customers"?
Perhaps there will be one, and only one, Kim Snyder Method Seminar.
Don't bank on google to find unhappy people. Next month, she may be
pitching the "Jenny Brown Guaranteed Return Strategy." Change the
name, and google is useless.

From the website, she says she's figured out a way to generate
fail-safe returns using innovative portfolio structure.

Let me clue you in on something: JPMorganChase (and others) have acres
of supercomputers designed to pore over every conceivable chunk of
capital market data. If there were a fail safe investment strategy
such as what she's describing (do A, B, and C when these conditions
are met), the computers would have found them a long time ago. No
matter how detailed her strategy is, it can be boiled down to a
complicated flow chart. This is the kind of thing those supercomputers
excel at. If any conceivable strategy has performed consistently in
the recent past, the compters would have found them. The banks would
have bought into the strategy, raising the price of whatever they
invest in, destorying the profit opportunity.

You are free to spend $3K on the seminar, then spend ??? thousands on
the investments only to realize that you're rolling the dice against
much more sophisticated investors. Joe Schmoe can do decently by
picking stocks & funds... once Joe Schmoe starts trading exotic
options, futures, naked puts, etc, things go downhill fast.

Based on the website's description, I would guess the strategy goes
something like this: lever up to the hilt to buy as much stock as
possible. Sell calls on the stock to generate income. In theory, you
can earn all kinds of income on this strategy. The catch is this: I
bet she's not including the princpal cash in anything. When all's said
and done, you'll end up netting close to zero on everything. You
collect the call income upfront. If the stock falls, you have a huge
capital loss. If the stock rises, all of your calls are called, so you
can never realize your capital gain. After margin interest,
transaction fees, etc, your income from selling the calls is pretty
much reduced to zero... and this is the BEST case scenario.

THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH!

Hey I am a Financial Analyst based in India and hope you must have
heard about the hype surrounding emerging markets in your country. Let
me first give you a few facts about India. India is the second largest
growing economy in the world. It has large talent pool of English
speaking and IT - skilled people. Due to the low labor costs as
compared to other developed countries India has become now the
preferred destination for global outsourcing. This boom has put more
purchasing power in the Indian  middle class with the demands of
consumer goods, real estate(especially single occupancy houses), and
luxury goods has blossomed. India is also proving metal in the
manufacturing sector with some of the Indian Brands like Tata Tea,
Bharat Forge, M & M ,Hero Honda ... setting global benchmarks. The
corporate sector is well supported by the government under the
prudence of PM Mr. Manmohan Singh a prudent economist. The man has to
his credit bring about financial reform in India paving way for
today?s growth way back in 1990 as his stint as Finance Minister. The
government is encouraging corporate India to think big and news of
$1-100 million dollars acquisitions made by Indian companies for
overseas foray is now banal. ICICI bank a leading private sector bank
has opened fully owned subsidiary in Canada. The entire back office
work is outsourced to low cost support in India. The bank has
transferred the savings thus made to the consumers by offering 35-75
basis points more than the local banks .The result the bank has
already enrolled 22000 customers and is opening 1500 new accounts per
week. Corporate India is full of such stories in the recent budget the
FM has stressed the need for rural India modernization. This has set a
new wave of infrastructure, telecommunication, power sector and
consumer goods boom.
In sum, the Indian economy is well in place and is poised to grow @
6-7% in the next decade. This is very strong figure as compared to
developed economies which grow at 2-3%. This growth is being reflected
in the Indian Stock Markets. The sensex of BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange)
the oldest Stock Exchange in India equivalent to NYSE in US has zoomed
100% from 4000 levels last may to 8000 levels as of today in
September. Even after such exponential rise the market still quote at
a P/E of 14 which is not expensive. The corporate India is expected to
grow @ 20% thus these leaves rooms for further appreciation in years
to come. Now my expertise as a financial consultant is tracking those
stocks which are unnoticed by the markets. There are close 5000
scripts trading on the sensex and detailed study on each one of them
is not possible. Over the last one year my recommendations have turned
out to be multibagers and investors making as much as 1500 -100% over
their initial investments. If you don?t believe this just check out
the link below giving the returns of some picks on the Indian bourses
over the last one year.
Hence I am proposing you to invest in the Indian Stock Market. Of
course you could invest in other emerging markets also like Brazil,
Korea etc. but investing in all the countries directly wouldn?t be
feasible and while taking the mutual fund route the returns will be
limited and would not be your goal. You can forward the money to our
company and will act as your proxy in India to invest in the equities
here. We charge a flat rate of 15% as operational - managerial costs.
I do realize to trust your life-time money with a stranger that too
from your soil but I can guarantee you return of 100% in a year?s time
frame. Also you can start by investing just 10% of your intended
investment initially and as you gain confidence and trust in us you
could gradually increase the sum. If the above proposal is fine with
you then u can contact me on kriru@hotmail.com.
Hoping to hear from you soon.

Jaseaux,
If you are really interested, you could go to Kim's free session next
Sunday, but then I would suggest that you also go to the one on the
following Tuesday.
Why?  It is interesting to see what kind of people turn up and
discover what she says.  It will probably be a pitch to sign up for a
course, and there will probably be people doing so, blabbing about how
enthused they are.
There may even be "alumni" there, coming forward to tell about their experience.  
If you go back to the second free session and happen to find the same
people enthusing, you will know that they are shills.  You also might
find that you are not welcome at the second session.
Something else to consider is that any undocumented success stories
based on past transactions can be fudged.  With 100% hindsight, almost
anyone can pick investments that turn out to be (have been) very
lucrative.
That is what the computers are trying to do, find patterns in past
market movements and translate them into a projection of future
movements.

Might check out the Job Openings  page.  She is looking for people to
run seminars and lists the required qualifications.  Interesting.
Myoarin

Hi Everyone. My name is Kim Snider. There are lots of interesting
comments as a result of this question. I just thought I would leave
the following:

I don't blame you for being skeptical. You should be. There are a lot
of people out there selling a lot of snake oil, not only in seminars,
but from Wall Street to Main Street ... and every street in between.

One of the many problems I have with Wall Street is their lack of
transparency. I built my business by looking at all the things I
thought were wrong with the financial services industry and doing the
opposite. So far, people like you and I who feel they have been let
down by the pervasive greed in the industry have been incredibly
supportive. Among industry insiders ... well, not so much. We've
ruffled a few feathers, but so be it.

So in the name of total transparency, I am willing to make anyone the
following offer. We are an open book. Call me and we can arrange a day
for you to come down and spend some time at our office. If you want to
see our patent application I would be more than happy to show it to
you and explain the process to you. (BTW, there is a lot of
misunderstanding about the difference in the process for a business
method patent as compared to traditional ones. Because they are so
new, there is a huge backlog at the patent office. They don't have
enough examiners to go through them. Also, if you would like to get a
feel for how many financial products are having patents filed on them
these days, check out
http://www.bakosenterprises.com/IP/B-08152005/IP%20Bulletin%20printer%20friendly.html)

If you want to talk with our bankers, lawyers, or accountants I'd be
happy to put you in touch with them. You can spend some time sitting
with our customer service reps taking calls from our students.
Anything you want or need to satisfy yourself that we are exactly what
we say and that we do exactly what we say, I am more than willing to
do. Whatever it takes. We'll roll out the red carpet. We are very
proud of this company and what it does for people.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention that in addition to our
"open door policy", we also offer a 30 day money back guarantee. So if
after all that, you come to the workshop and it does not live up to
your expectations all you have to do is let us know and we will refund
100% of your money - no questions asked.

Who else would make you that sort of offer? I hope you'll take me up
on it. If you have any other questions or would like to arrange a
visit, call me on my direct line. My number is 214-245-5238.