the next possible targets: timberhill patsystems open ecry refco ninjatrader buttontrader trademaven the list goes on and on. mo money mo money for tt.
I agree with Jeff. Why would someone like TT go after small fish like TradeMaven and Ninja Trader. But, if they do... They might as well pack it up and say good bye
Here is a patent that may be revoked. Notice the wording used "...It would have been obvious to programmers of ordinary skill..." If the FAT is not patentable because it is an obvious table, I GUARANTEE you that a DOM representation as a listbox side by side is not patentable:
Exacting what do they have a patent on . Is it placing order automaticly like TradeStations does. Are they infringing or is it something more.
A simple solution to avoiding all this patent-bullshit which mostly applies to the US anyways (although the EU adopted some similar measures) is to get rid of the ladder itself, keep the L2/orderbook and link it to a moving blown-up (part of) chart with a moving label for last price and "Tooltips"-lookalike prices for the other pricelevels than last price ... well, or something like that. That would take all the spunk out of the priceladder ideology linked to the orderbook; it would be something similar in looks but linked to a chart instead - not a priceladder. Then some boxing tools etc could be used to add a lot of other functionality. Adding a timeline as well, could get another important dimension into there with lots of useful functionality. I might patent that, though. I've been hacking on some stuff like that, and read with bemusement the scorned words from Hoi from Buttontrader when others launched DOM+chart linked apps in the IB API/announcement forums. There are many ways to get around the artificial priceladder and get similar fast-click-trading functionality into other systems. There are just a lot of people who get very narrow sighted when something disruptive like the DOM/priceladder gets rolled out. Every SW-chief "gotta have it". Well, there are several possibilities with just as fast and easy functionality with much better information structures. I like animated information, but struggle to find something really worthwhile chasing for visual benefits (as well as informational benefits) for trading - esp. tape-reading. Finally XTrader and MD is well below average from other good priceladder/DOM implementations I've seen. I liked Tradestation 8 a little - nice looks.