Commerce Bancshares, Inc.

Commerce Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBSH) is a bank holding company headquartered at 1000 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri. Its subsidiary, Commerce Bank, traces its founding to 1865; the holding company was incorporated in 1966. It is a publicly traded, independent company (no parent above it). Per its FY2025 Form 10-K, it reported total revenue of about $1.76 billion, net income of $566.3 million, total assets of $32.9 billion, and 4,667 full-time equivalent employees.

Operations. Commerce describes itself as a "super-community bank," operating roughly 140 branch facilities primarily in Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Colorado through three reporting segments: Commercial (48% of 2025 segment pre-tax income), Retail Banking (28%), and Wealth (24%). Offerings include business and personal banking, commercial and real estate lending, credit cards, deposit and trust services, private banking, and wealth/investment management. On January 1, 2026 it closed the all-stock acquisition of FineMark Holdings (~$524.5 million), adding Florida, Arizona, and South Carolina.

Litigation posture. Commerce is an operating company, not an NPE. Its two tracked appearances are one defense and one challenge: as defendant it was sued by a patent-assertion entity, and its single "plaintiff" appearance is an inter partes review petition at the PTAB challenging the NPE's patents — a defensive use of the PTAB rather than an offensive infringement suit. The cases were litigated in the Western District of Missouri, not an ED Texas venue.

Notable cases. Intellectual Ventures II LLC v. Commerce Bancshares, Inc. et al., No. 2:13-cv-04160 (W.D. Mo., filed June 20, 2013), accused Commerce's PCI Data Security Standard compliance, security practices, ROAMPay mobile payment service, and use of an IBM System z10 server of infringing five IV patents ('574, '694, '084, '409, '666). The court stayed the case June 4, 2014 pending IPR. In IPR2014-00786, filed May 20, 2014, Compass Bank, Commerce Bancshares, and First National Bank of Omaha jointly petitioned against IV's '694 patent (with parallel petitions including IPR2014-00722 and -00801). The asserted claims were ultimately held unpatentable, with the Federal Circuit affirming. Commerce later sought attorney fees in the reopened district case.