Looks like TT has won. Now we just have to wait and see whether they have a cow to milk or the industry just drifts in another direction...
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Trading Technologies awarded patent for DOM
- Thread starter bundlemaker
- Start date
Trading Technologies settles another patent claim
Chicago-based Trading Technologies (TT) has settled another patent infringement lawsuit, this time with Colorado-based NinjaTrader which has agreed to licence TT's patented MD Trader technology.
In a statement TT says NinjaTrader admitted that the futures trading system, NinjaTrader SuperDOM, infringed two patents awarded for its MD Trader system - an order-entry screen that displays multiple prices so that users can judge the depth of a market - which is part of the its X_Trader platform. Under a licence agreement NinjaTrader will pay TT a variable royalty of at least 10 cents per side for all contracts that trade in conjunction with the NinjaTrader SuperDOM system. NinjaTrader will also extend connectivity support for its advanced order management platform to TT's high speed gateways.
Raymond Deux, CEO of NinjaTrader, says: "The evidence has shown that TT's issued MD Trader patents are solid. This invention has proven to be of great value to traders by providing a more efficient means to enter, modify and execute their orders. Ninja plans to continue to offer and enhance its NinjaTrader product and SuperDOM trading screen pursuant to the licence."
The agreement also settled a lawsuit pending in the Federal Court in Chicago alleging that Ninja infringed two of TT's patents. The firm is the latest in a number of vendors to be accused of patent infringement by TT. Chicago brokers Kingstree Trading and Goldenberg Hehmeyer both agreed an out-of-court settlement with TT within days of being sued by the vendor last year, while more recently UK-based Patsystems and Chicago-based Advantage Futures both settled claims.
The vendor is still contesting suits with other companies including UK hedge fund manager Man Group and bond trading network eSpeed. In May TT instigated a showdown with futures commission merchant and patent target Refco by saying it will disconnect services to Refco unless the two parties reach an agreement by today.
TT claims to process in excess of 50% futures market share through its X-Trader system. In December last year the vendor released an open letter to the futures industry asking for a fee of 2.5 cents per side on all trades conducted over the Big Four futures and options exchanges.
( Published: 15/07/2005 )
Chicago-based Trading Technologies (TT) has settled another patent infringement lawsuit, this time with Colorado-based NinjaTrader which has agreed to licence TT's patented MD Trader technology.
In a statement TT says NinjaTrader admitted that the futures trading system, NinjaTrader SuperDOM, infringed two patents awarded for its MD Trader system - an order-entry screen that displays multiple prices so that users can judge the depth of a market - which is part of the its X_Trader platform. Under a licence agreement NinjaTrader will pay TT a variable royalty of at least 10 cents per side for all contracts that trade in conjunction with the NinjaTrader SuperDOM system. NinjaTrader will also extend connectivity support for its advanced order management platform to TT's high speed gateways.
Raymond Deux, CEO of NinjaTrader, says: "The evidence has shown that TT's issued MD Trader patents are solid. This invention has proven to be of great value to traders by providing a more efficient means to enter, modify and execute their orders. Ninja plans to continue to offer and enhance its NinjaTrader product and SuperDOM trading screen pursuant to the licence."
The agreement also settled a lawsuit pending in the Federal Court in Chicago alleging that Ninja infringed two of TT's patents. The firm is the latest in a number of vendors to be accused of patent infringement by TT. Chicago brokers Kingstree Trading and Goldenberg Hehmeyer both agreed an out-of-court settlement with TT within days of being sued by the vendor last year, while more recently UK-based Patsystems and Chicago-based Advantage Futures both settled claims.
The vendor is still contesting suits with other companies including UK hedge fund manager Man Group and bond trading network eSpeed. In May TT instigated a showdown with futures commission merchant and patent target Refco by saying it will disconnect services to Refco unless the two parties reach an agreement by today.
TT claims to process in excess of 50% futures market share through its X-Trader system. In December last year the vendor released an open letter to the futures industry asking for a fee of 2.5 cents per side on all trades conducted over the Big Four futures and options exchanges.
( Published: 15/07/2005 )
tt must have some pretty good lawyers and the good fortune of some pretty credulous judges. hard to believe that everyone has stolen their algorithms.
at this rate, TT will own the entire world by this time next year.
at this rate, TT will own the entire world by this time next year.
New twist?
US Justice Department is said to be investigating TT for possible monopoly abuse.
http://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?id=14005
US Justice Department is said to be investigating TT for possible monopoly abuse.
http://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?id=14005
Quote from luke24.5:
Still don't see how you patent claim a row of numbers. Seems like a clear case of strong-arm monopolization to me. hope the feds bust'em adn soon.
I can understand patenting an algorithm based on a propreitary OS, but this is a bullshit patent. Just like Amazons "one click" nonesense. I was surprised Ebay never attempted to patent their "online flea market" concept after the Amazon patent was approved. It's like some idiot with deep pockets patenting the concept of a bicycle and then going out and sueing every bike shop.
Quote from mhashe:
I can understand patenting an algorithm based on a proprietary OS, but this is a bullshit patent. Just like Amazons "one click" nonsense. I was surprised Ebay never attempted to patent their "online flea market" concept after the Amazon patent was approved. It's like some idiot with deep pockets patenting the concept of a bicycle and then going out and suing every bike shop.
With all respect you don't know what you're talking about.
First of all the bicycle was patented in 1866 to Pierre Lallement.
Second, the bicycle spawned so many technological innovations that the USPTO had to create a special office just for bicycle patents.
Third, for your comparison to make sense - all of the bicycles would have to be chinese knockoffs of bicycles invented manufactured and sold by the patent holder.
Harris independently invented the price ladder concept and it was not an obvious solution. I was an independent software developer at the time and witnessed this first hand.
If you were trading in 1997 and looked high and low you would have been unable to find a price ladder with a static center price line despite the fact that electronic trading had existed for at least a decade at this point.
Shortly after the MD trader interface was introduced traders began demanding it and it was widely copied. So widely that only now does it seem obvious. Just like turn signals on cars or traffic lights (both patented). Everyone is used to seeing it everywhere and relying on it.
The fact that this invention is constructed out of graphical screen elements as opposed to metal and rubber doesn't invalidate it.
a patent must be
1) new - it did not exist before 1998
2) useful - everybody copied it
3) non-obvious - it took electronic trading gui's at least a decade to evolve to this interface. It is counter-intuitive in design because prices can run off the screen. In fact, one company when they copied it, actually copied it wrong the first time.
The invention was evolved through Harris' trading of hundreds of thousands of contracts a day. He had to come up with a way to process volume as an electronic market maker and MD Trader was the final result.
This is not the typical patent abuse scenario. for a couple of reasons.
1) The original inventor is the beneficiary of the patent. (He does have deep pockets but i assure you is not an idiot)
2) The patent owner is legitimately in the business of trying to sell the idea. (in other words this isn't SCO linux - TT is in the business of selling trading software)
Everything about this case is pretty much textbook to how our patent system was designed to work.
And if you have a suggestion for how Harris could stop people from copying his invention other than suing them I'm sure he'd be glad to hear it.
Everybody ridiculed Harris' original suggestion which was that the exchanges license it on behalf of all the vendors/traders (along with the zillion other TT patents) for the good of their own industry.
I notice the CME raised prices by a couple cents across the board recently, I wonder what value we traders got for that price hike?
Quote from Xenia:
Re: Comparison
But fortunatley you don´t have to pay $0.10 each time that you use them.
That's because those patents have expired. (unless we're talking about those turn signals on side view mirrors)
But you pay the all kinds of licensing fees indirectly every time you buy a car because the automaker will be passing the cost through to you and the automaker pays it's licensing fees on a a per car basis.
So by comparison if you buy 100 cars from the CME you pay for 100 licenses. If the CME had already paid the license fee on your behalf, you wouldn't notice it would just be passed on as part of the relatively much bigger exchange fee they charge you. Just like with a car.
For example, anyone that connects directly to the exchange has to pay a both a one time and a yearly charge to reuters to pay for the tibco messaging software that the CME chose for it's price distribution.
So I suppose TT could charge per trader or per exchange or a flat yearly fee for its licensing. But that wouldn't be very fair to small traders.
FredBloggs
Guest
market hacker -
what are your views on refcos stance in this issue?
youre probably aware, but for those who are not, refco state they are not infringing the tt patent as their technology was based on the idea originally developed by a japanese stock exchange (oska?), not tt's md.
if refco win on this, then tt will be faced with a hefty legal bill, which may (pure speculation here) damage the longevity of tt's survival. this would be a great shame to the trading community. i stated before that this could be the undoing of tt (as we have discussed before). lets see.
anyway, your views on refcos stance and the impact to tt will be interesting.
cheers,
what are your views on refcos stance in this issue?
youre probably aware, but for those who are not, refco state they are not infringing the tt patent as their technology was based on the idea originally developed by a japanese stock exchange (oska?), not tt's md.
if refco win on this, then tt will be faced with a hefty legal bill, which may (pure speculation here) damage the longevity of tt's survival. this would be a great shame to the trading community. i stated before that this could be the undoing of tt (as we have discussed before). lets see.
anyway, your views on refcos stance and the impact to tt will be interesting.
cheers,