Single Click Trading!?

The paent basically has 3 principal claims that the single click trading is one of them.
Now, I have 2 concerns:
1. Since, it does require presetting the criteria, then a single click claim is WRONG. Is this true or not?
2. If It is NOT single click then the concept has been around for ever, or at least as long as the computers became involved in placing the first computerized order, or NOT? Hence NO patent should have been granted specifically to this aspect of it.
3. The claim has so wrongfully covered such an obvious method, NOT a novelty that it makes it impossible to bring any new innovation to the market!
Basically what the patent does prohibits any system of ever placing ANY kind of computerized orders. This IS NOT about the single click anymore, it's about placing computerized orders, or NOT?!!!!!!
This is the only question I have that I'd like to be answered, if the single click method as falsely presented exist or if they have patented the computerized order placement?
The patent is simply stopping any innovator, for example of creating a system that would utilize voice recognition to place a simple Sell at the Market method without ever even touching a mouse, keyboard or what have you, or NOT? Or for that matter a method that can read the trader's mind to place a sell at the market order utilizing preset data.
Is reading the trader's mind considered to be a single click, I ask?

 

OK, I'll make this simple.
If I create a voice recognition system that would utilize NOT a dome but the oldest form of electronic order entry form that ever existed to receive the preset data for the order and use my mic. to by saying just the word "TRADE" which will function as the last click on the above form for sending the order, would I be infringing the said patent?

The answer, is YES! How ridiculous that could be now?

I am using the oldest order entry form that ever existed for electronic trading and utilizing the voice recognition as my click that this feature NEVER existed in the TT patent and yet I will be infringing their patent...

 

Hi ML_QUANT,

What you need to first understand about patents is that the monopoly they provide is defined by the words of the claims, and the words of the claims may be defined by the words of the patent specification.

In order for any action or product to be an infringement, it must include every single feature of a patent claim.

If you look at the method claim of the patent, quoted above, you will note that it has many features. To infringe this claim a method must include every one of those features.

I far as I can tell, the patent is not for a single click trading method, nor does the patent specification refer to the method in this way. The patent does not cover every method of computerised orders - it covers a particular method of computerised orders, as defined in the claims.

The patent claims do NOT cover a voice recognition method, because such a method does not use a pointer of a user input device positioned over a price area in the DOM, as required by the claims.

If you used a combination of both a mouse and voice recognition, that also would NOT be an infringement, because the user input device would be different to the pointer device.

To determine if something would infringe the claim, first split the claim into its individual integers, then consider whether the method you have in mind includes every single one of those integers.

For this claimed invention to be considered as obvious, every feature of the claimed method in the combination as claimed would need to have been obvious at the time when the patent was filed, which was June 2000.

 

Thank you Big…,

This is really good news that an infringement occurs if all methods of a patent have been duplicated. What a sigh of relieve…although I’ll look into it to make absolutely sure.
Now I understand how Transact Futures is also getting around the infringement issue. Their Dome has all the features and methods of the Patent except, when the mouse scrolls over the Bid/Ask column they kind of go grey! Clever but not of much use to the user not knowing which price they’re pulling the trigger on!

Now on the Click media, I disagree with you or again I might have interpreted this wrongly. In the extract below, they are clearly identifying that ANY input device and Voice Recognition or even using 'Mind-Control' or any means to interface with the computer would be considered an input device?!
I have highlighted the specific part in red below.


It is envisioned that the system of the present invention can be implemented on any existing or future terminal or device with the processing capability to perform the functions described herein. The scope of the present invention is not limited by the type of terminal or device used. Further, the specification refers to a single click of a mouse as a means for user input and interaction with the terminal display as an example of a single action of the user. While this describes a preferred mode of interaction, the scope of the present invention is not limited to the use of a mouse as the input device or to the click of a mouse button as the user's single action. Rather, any action by a user within a short period of time, whether comprising one or more clicks of a mouse button or other input device, is considered a single action of the user for the purposes of the present invention.

 

Who cares? This is 2008 and if you're still clicking a mouse to trade I have one word for you: keyboard. Use it. Keys are quicker than a mouse can be.

 

Other than my problem in relation to own invention that will be based on Voice recognition and Mind Control to transmit what is known as the single click(or better said the last click). Below is what I find preposterous about the patented invention by TT.

What is known in the Visual programming as forms has existed now for more than two decades at least.

What the TT patent refers to in plain words is, filling up a form and then calls the last click to send/transmit the form’s data, misleadingly as a single click! As far back as when the Windows was invented, the user has always been able to choose between a single or a double click to send a command to the CPU!

Thus, the single click means the last click which concludes the completion of a form.

Now, the question raised here would be if the patent office is supposed to know about say, Visual programming to know if the inventor is BSing them or not?

I am thoroughly surprised how the defendants could have lost their cases against the TT?!
As Big said, every part of a patent’s claims must be a novelty and certainly the single click part was NOT since it disguised the last click to transmit the form as totally something else that it was not!

Then, after the avalanche of losing defendant cases that TT went after started, all brokers and ISV’s such as NT, relaxed since they could all now pass the buck to the users and have them pay for the extra cost of trading while they too made something off it also.
A True capitalism at works!

 

That passage in the specification is making sure that when the term 'user input device' is used in the claims, it is not read as only being a mouse - it may be any user input device.

However, going back to the claims, you will note that it is an essential feature that the 'user input device' controls the movement of a pointer. There is no practical way that a voice recognition system would replace the use of a mouse in moving the pointer - thus any usable system wouldn't infringe.

Additionally, for voice recognition, and particularly for mind control, there would be no reason to have a pointer at all. The user would either say (or think) buy/sell at whatever price. In which case the patent claim would be avoided in several ways.

 

Actually, what I was saying was that to be not inventive, the combination as a whole (every integer in total) must be not inventive. To be not novel, there must be a prior disclosure in a single document or use that includes every integer claimed. Naturally many of the integers by themselves will be not novel or inventive.

It is usual for a patented invention that is a combination of things (as most things are) to be novel or inventive because of one single integer being different over what was known before.

In this case it is not the use of a 'single click' that is the invention. It is the method of trading comprising a combination of a price ladder on a dynamic DOM, wherein a single click on a particular price on the ladder initiates a trade.

Seems obvious now because so many systems do it.

But was it obvious 8 years ago?

 

Indeed, I quite agree with you that the Keyboard utilizing Macros can be faster than the Mouse in most ways but not moving the cursor to a desire point on the screen.
I do care, since the invention although itself very useful but in generalizing very broad based claims is potentially getting in the way of other inventions that could improve present Trading Methods.

 

Hi BigFunky,

This is my point too that, the patent is not restricting itself to just a mouse as the user input and rather it is covering in a very broad and general way all possible user input devices that could exist! Voice/Speech recognition and or Mind/Eye Control are also at the end of the day user input devices too!
Since all any input device does is send electrical voltage to the CPU and obviously different UI’s will have different functionalities but the patent is in essence covering sending electrical pulses to the CPU initiated by the user?!