"Harris developed this technology with TT and TT brought it to market to help the industry, and patented the product to protect it. Electronic trading was in existence for over 10 years (including throughout the dot-com era) before TT released MD Trader and the financial industry had nothing like MD Trader until TT brought it to market. In fact, MD Trader was radically different than the preexisting trading systems and TT needed to convince many traders that MD Trader was superior. There are still people who use the older style trading screens (such as Level II style screens) in the futures industry and other asset classes have yet to widely adopt the MD Trader style-trading tool. TT understands that many electronic futures traders who began trading sometime in the last four years may have only seen trading applications with MD Trader-like tools. These individuals do not know, because they never experienced it, what the order entry systems were like before MD Trader". Anyone buying this?
On August 12, 2004, Trading Technologies International, Inc. (âTTâ) filed a lawsuit against eSpeed, Inc. (âeSpeedâ) in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, alleging infringement of TTâs U.S. Patent Nos. 6,766,304 and 6,772,132. The â304 patent issued on July 20, 2004 and the â132 patent issued on August 3, 2004. The patents relate to functionality of TTâs MD Traderâ¢, which is a component of TTâs X_Trader® trading software. âMD Trader is an important invention that I developed along with TT. I brought it to market with TT because I thought it would be of tremendous value to our customers â brokers, traders and exchanges. I believe that MD Trader represents a fundamental shift in interactive order entry and will continue to be so for many years to come. I believe that MD Trader and other TT innovations have added tremendous volume to the futures industry, and will eventually offer tremendous value to all asset classes, and we intend to protect our intellectual property,â said Harris Brumfield, TTâs CEO.
Well, At least they are suing the deep pocket guys. We can all sit back and relax for the next 5 years while they sort it out...
Good observation. its not just the trading arena though - but true of the software industry full stop.
As I've never been a pit trader I wonder if anyone could help confirm or deny a story I was told. Apparently traders used to draw their own 'Mercury bar' style displays of price and volume. I'm interested in whether this could be considered evidence that the Mercury bar, as patented recently by Trading Technolgies, isn't an original idea. Any views?
I never heard of the Mercury Bar..... most traders I know including myself frequently use Alcock's Bar, River's Bar and Stocks and Blondes on Wells Street. JG
Mercury Bar 493 3rd Ave New York, NY 10016 Phone: 212-683-2645 Mercury Bar 451 Ormeau Rd Belfast Co. Antrim Antrim +44 28 9064 9017