TD recently surpassed 1,000 granted patents, a milestone that John S. Lee says reflects more than legal output. For the bank’s Head of Patents, the number points to years of sustained innovation, discipline and a growing “inventor mindset” across the organization.
According to Lee, patents have become a way for TD to capture and protect ideas emerging from across the bank, from client-facing technologies to internal systems that make work more efficient. That activity has also positioned TD as a standout among Canadian financial institutions, with the bank ranked as the top Canadian bank for patent filings over the past decade in a November 2025 Evident AI report.
Much of that momentum is now tied to artificial intelligence. Lee points to TD AI Prism, a recently launched platform aimed at predicting customer needs and personalizing banking experiences, as one example of how the bank’s patent strategy connects directly to business priorities. TD has filed 70 patents around that ecosystem alone.
In an interview with Fintech.ca, Lee discussed what TD’s patent milestone says about innovation inside the bank, how colleagues are being encouraged to think like inventors, why Canadian companies need to take intellectual property more seriously, and how TD is approaching patents in the age of AI.
TD recently surpassed 1,000 granted patents. For people outside the patent world, what does a number like that actually tell you about what’s happening inside an organization?
JL: It tells you that innovation is not happening in pockets. It is systematic, and it requires an extraordinary amount of discipline to sustain over time.
What people sometimes miss about patents is the timeline involved. So when you see a number like 1,000 granted patents, what you are really looking at is years of dedication, forethought, and persistence. Very few companies reach that threshold, and almost none in financial services. According to a November 2025 Evident AI report, TD was the number one Canadian bank in patent filings over the past decade.
The number itself matters, but what it represents matters more: colleagues across every part of the bank constantly thinking about problems that have never been solved before and having the patience to see those ideas through a long and demanding process.
You have talked before about building an “inventor mindset” at TD. How do you help colleagues who might not think of themselves as inventors recognize that the ideas they have could become protectable innovations?
JL: Education and mentorship, and it has evolved a lot over the years. Early on, the work was really about teaching people what a patent even is and what they should care about. Now it is much more collaborative. Colleagues mentor each other through the process. They learn to apply their business knowledge to self-identify what is genuinely novel about the work they do every day and what processes they could potentially implement to make their jobs easier.
The key insight we try to help people arrive at is that when they are solving hard problems in their current roles, some of those solutions may represent a point of absolute novelty, something that has never existed in the world before and that can be protected. That realization changes how people see their own work.
Can you give a concrete example of how patent activity connects directly to something that matters for TD’s clients or colleagues?
JL: TD AI Prism is a product that launched recently and represents a fundamental shift in how the bank approaches repeatable, controlled conversation models, aimed at predicting customer needs and personalizing banking experiences. We have filed 70 patents to protect that ecosystem alone. It represents how an entire organization has shifted its focus toward developing, implementing, and protecting a capability that will directly improve the way we serve clients. It demonstrates both the discipline and the sustaining power of the program.
Patents are sometimes seen as a legal exercise that sits apart from the business. How does TD’s patent strategy connect back to real, measurable outcomes?
JL: Patents are a byproduct of innovation. You cannot do patents without innovation happening first. What our program does is help the rest of the business crystallize their innovation in a way that is standardized and repeatable.
A lot of innovation happens across different parts of the bank, and the language people use to describe it internally can be very different from how it would be understood externally or across other jurisdictions. The patent program creates a unified language for people to communicate their ideas and gives external partners and the public a way to understand TD’s innovation through measurable outputs.
This is also worth noting: patents are one of the few board-level metrics that systematically track innovation across an enterprise. It gives leadership a way to understand the organization’s full innovation footprint and to make sure that what is being built is standardized and protected across all boundaries, not just within banking.
TD’s patent activity is unusually strong for a Canadian financial institution. What role should Canadian companies be playing when it comes to protecting innovation domestically?
JL: Canadian residents account for only about 12 per cent of patent applications filed. A lot of Canadian ingenuity is going unrecognized and unprotected, and I think we have a responsibility to close that gap.
TD’s patent program is one way we are doing that, but I believe other Canadian institutions, whether in financial services or elsewhere, need to take intellectual property seriously as part of how they advance and protect Canadian innovation globally.
AI is accelerating the pace of invention across every industry. How is the patent program evolving to keep up while also supporting responsible innovation?
JL: We have been in this conversation from the very beginning. When the initial AI discussions were happening internally, the patent team had a seat at the table. We were there when Layer 6 came on board. TD acquired Layer 6 back in 2018, and that early investment gave us a head start that continues to pay off. Today we have over 2,500 AI scientists, engineers, data analysts, and experts building proprietary platforms and applications in-house, with hubs in Toronto and New York. Responsible AI has always been part of how we think about filing and protection, not something added after the fact.
The way it works in practice is that we have strong, standing relationships between the patent team and the AI team, like our Trustworthy AI framework where our AI governance committee reviews all use cases, which focuses on the ethical development of everything we build. We meet regularly across all groups to make sure we are integrated with their work and evolving alongside them. We have filed extensively, and often ahead of the curve, to make sure TD is well positioned as AI continues to develop. The pace is fast, but because we have been on this journey for years and built those relationships deeply into the organization, we are able to move with confidence.
Looking ahead, what is the next milestone for TD’s patent program?
JL: It is about making sure every colleague at TD has a clear pathway to become a recognized inventor if they want to. Our team is still relatively small compared to the scale of the bank, and we have not yet been able to reach every corner of the organization in the way we want to. So the focus now is on building out the infrastructure to ensure all innovative ideas are captured, recognized, and protected, regardless of where they originate.
In terms of what excites me, I do not think we are anywhere close to being done talking about AI. As it moves from experimentation into real, implemented use cases, continuous technical challenges are emerging, and the minds at TD are actively solving them. The work being done right now is pioneering new areas of innovation, and I am looking forward to seeing how the next wave of patents reflects the depth of what our colleagues are building.
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