IB - Booktrader 906 no more single click!

I think you're right. Open source projects have been sued for patent violations in the past and I'm sure it will happen again so giving these tools away isn't a solution, even if you found people willing to go that route.

 

NinjaTrader works with IB and provides a TT compliant Depth Of Makret (we call it SuperDOM) interface with true single click trading. This means orders can be placed by one click and orders can be modified with one click, not drag and drop like most other platforms.

Anyone can use it indefinitely for free for trade simulation connected to your live IB account.

 

I appreciate you enthusiasum in discusing this case, but it appears that you don't quite understand how patent law works, and particuarly how patent claims are construed in regard to infringement.

You should note that the interpretation of the claims is a matter of law on which the Courts decide - and which the Courts have decided. Their interpretation of the claims is that in order to infringe the price ladder must be static except when manually centered, and the bids and asks must move dynamically in alignment with the market price. The Courts found, explicitly, that if the price ladder is auto centering it does not infringe. So I don't know why you keep repeating that the patent is impossible to not infringe. The Court already effectively found that the defendants aren't infringing it!

Your interpretation using TT's proposed construction of the terms is not relevant because it is not the actual interpreation of the claims. TT had their chance when they drafted the patent- no matter how much they argue now, they can't change what it is - so forget about their interpretation, it was denied.

- If you need to know more, provide an example and I'll explain why it either infringes or does not infringe.

You appear to be ignoring the obvious here - when the user clicks once on their input devices to initiate a trade - no matter how many additional processes performed by the any number of other devices, people or hamsters on a wheel - none of those require a further click on the mouse. That one click results in the trade being sent to the exchange. Accordingly, the trade has been performed with one single action of an input device. Anyone skilled in the art knows that the mouse isn't physcially connected to some 'enter trade switch' on the exchange, and so additional electronic processes are required for it to occur. It isn't the function of a patent claim to describe how everything works - the claim's sole function is to define the boundaries of the patent monopoly. The specification describes how it how works.

Accordingly, uour submmission that "there is nothing at all to suggest a ‘single action or equivalent’ definition exists" is a bit daft if you're only reading the claims. The claims never contain definitions, they are only contained in the specification. If you are unsure of the contents of the specification - then feel free to read it. That's why it is published - it's not a secret.

I would also suggest you become a bit more open to learning how patent law works. Otherwise you'll continuingly be frustrated with something you don't understand. There's plenty of good books on patent law, which should clear up some of the mystery for you.

 

Only a lawyer, and not a real human being, would defend a patent based on a single click that initiated a complete process.

Hang the lawyers.


Did some prick get a patent for a cars ignition key starting the motor. Lot's of things happen when you turn the key, should be good for 100 billion in royalties.

 

It's not uncommon for the uninformed to jump to conclusions based on a one line description. All too often someone will read the title of a patent and think that's the monopoly provided - it's not, it's just a title.

 

Excellent explanations and clarifications BigF, thanks.

 

+2!

 

LOL - It doesn't get anymore patronizing than that does it? … and it hasn’t gone unnoticed that your enthusiasm has taken what I wrote, (which ONLY addressed your proposed ‘easy’ solution to the original patent), and then twisted it to be a comment on how patent law works.

Unless, of course I am to take your condescending statements to mean that my assumption about preventing the “standard arrangement of public domain facts”, can’t be grounds for exclusion - or perhaps that Bid/Ask data is not public domain? Or is a patent that is impossible to comply with acceptable under patent law?

I don’t know, because you didn’t say.

Instead of addressing why your ‘easy’ solution to the original patent’s intent would not be affected by what I wrote, you chose instead to reply with a chaff-filled, but enlightenment-free, response.

But that seems to be a regular theme in your replies. You claim to explain ‘why’ but you really only repeat TT’s initial claims such as ‘novelty’ etc. without any consideration that it might be far from novel and ignore any contrary evidence. To that ‘fluff’ we can now add your penchant to suggest reading assignments – sigh!

To give you the benefit of the doubt, maybe in your hasty desire to only answer the questions you wished had been asked, you've misunderstood what I’m actually questioning.

I’m not asking about patent law in general. I’m not asking what TT claim in their patent (or their 2007 defence of it). I’m also not questioning whether the patent office originally accepted them. We already know most of those things, so I’m at a loss as to why you insist on repeating them.

What I’m questioning is the validity and original acceptance of THIS patent (not patents in general) in light of how much of the data is common domain, how much ‘novelty’ can really be claimed given how Specialists have always recorded this information and whether non-infringement was ever possible short of removing the Bid/Ask data completely – as the patent was initially crafted.

If you don’t want to address those questions, that’s fine - but lame and patronizing preaching about generic patent law and how claims are construed in regard to infringement etc. etc., is no substitute. At best, you’re only answering a question that isn’t being asked.

Again, you're addressing that which is not being questioned.

I’m questioning why the patent was granted in the first place when TT clearly wanted their patent to ensure that ANY lack of price scale movement, at ANY time, constituted infringement - and all you offer is what a Court ruled many years later – which I already know.

The original TT patent made no allowance for manual OR automatic re-centering. In fact, they continually argued in the 2007 claim that even a momentary static state, no matter how small in duration, still constituted an infringement.

That’s why I return to the fact that TT’s original patent, their interpretation and their INTENT always made non-infringement IMPOSSIBLE.
Their subsequent defence of this aspect in 2007 only confirms that original intent. This was known at the time that the original patent was accepted and, I believe, should have been more than enough grounds for exclusion.
If anything, the Court’s 2007 ruling only supports my assertion.
However, once again, instead of addressing why that aspect of the patent should have allowed or disallowed its issuance in the first place, you choose to answer a question that was never asked.
The question is, and always has been why was it permitted in the first place when it should have been obvious – even to you - that non-infringement would have been impossible without some period of a static state being permitted.
As I pointed out before, your ‘easy’ solution is no solution at all to the original patent’s intent. It’s only some 10 years later that a 2007 ruling permitting auto-recentering provided any resolution to the original patent’s inherent impossible-not-to-infringe intent.

Before you go off on these patronizing tirades, I suggest you learn to read the subject you’re commenting on – carefully - and avoid re-writing what was actually written. Otherwise all your admonitions about ‘learning how patent law works’ - as if the mere repetition of that directive serves as proof that you are an authority on the subject - starts to raise credibility questions. No one needs to read patent law to know that inserting what you wish had been written, as you are prone to do, does not make it so.
e.g. Nowhere in either Patent 304, Claim 1 or Patent 132, Claim 1 is their any reference, or even suggestion, for the need of a ‘further click on the mouse’ as you have written. I wasn’t missing anything obvious. It just isn’t there.
However, the patent does state that the ‘single action of the user input device’ will ‘send the order to the electronic exchange’. Not withstanding the very real fact that many ‘actions’ (Note: not necessarily the same thing as your ‘mouse click’ no matter how much you’d like it to be) can take place when using an input device, none of those actions ever result in that software, on that machine, sending any order to any exchange (Globex terminals et al. excepted).

I never claimed that it should describe how everything works. However its description must be precise, accurate and unambiguous. e.g. If you mean electronic exchange, broker, FCM or other trade intermediary, then craft the text to include them. However, if you choose to restrict the text to ‘electronic exchange’, then I don’t see why a patent holder should be allowed to later expand that scope to any, previously unlisted recipient.

No, what’s daft was your introduction of the ‘possibility’ of an ‘or equivalent’ definition in the specification when nothing in the CQG 2007 claim contains anything to suggest that there is one – and then telling someone else to read the specification??
I wholly accept that such a broadening definition may exist in the specification but why are you telling me to read it?? You’re the one who was unsure and only speculated that ‘or equivalent’ might exist in the specification. You read it!

Nowhere could anything in the patent, the claim, or anything I wrote be construed as the mouse being physically connected to some ‘enter trade switch’ on the exchange. Goodness only knows where you plucked that from – and it's more than daft.

From a software development standpoint, ‘sending to’ and ‘being physically connected to’ are very different. Perhaps you should avoid discussion of the I.T. element of this process until you read about it with the same vigour with which you seem addicted when preaching to others.
The patent only mentions ‘sending’ to the electronic exchange. What is sent from the DOM is not sent to ANY electronic exchange. It is sent to a Broker or FCM. Then, because each exchange has its own API, the final record format varies. The result is that what arrives at the exchange from the Broker/FCM is very different from what was sent from the trader's DOM.

Thanks. If I ever find myself discussing something other than why a patent was allowed in the first place I will. In the meantime might I also suggest that you work harder to discover what’s actually being discussed rather than what you’d like to be discussed. It’s even more frustrating for those who seek answers than it is for you.
Failing that, maybe consider Politics where such a skillset is actively encouraged.

 

Very well said. It seems the current best way to combat this sort of nonsense when it gets through the patent process is to counter sue. Presumably with an equally nonsensical patent infringement claim.

I noticed that RCG counterclaimed in the 2007 case.

I found this Stephen Kinsella lecture quite an interesting video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZgL...35D6476C&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=27

.... not least because he's a patent lawyer who is against most Intellectual Property Rights, Patents and Copyright !

 

blame it on the US Patent office, they are the moron who granted TT the patent.