I also agree it is silly, but if you were in his shoes, you would do the same. From what I have heard, many of the users of Trademaven, Ninja, ect... are moving over to TT. Seems like a very smart move on TT's part to enforce the patent...
what is the difference between static and dynamic? can't you stack two staic bid and offer boxes to create a ladder like I suggested before regardless of static or dynamic? This is like stacking airline arrivals and departures in a screen and called a patent.
Static means that the prices along the vertical axis are static. So if the market moves dramatically you will see bids/offers run off the screen. This is an advantage because it means if you click in a certain location on the screen you know exactly what price your limit order will have. The act of combining the two boxes as you describe would violate the patent.
If by clicking a price to set a limit order price is the basis of the TT patent, then the patent is too broad and should not be valid. What if on a level 2 box where the market is slow and the prices don't move, you click on either the bid or offer, does that constitutes a patent violation? I don't think so. It is a prior art. What if the market moves? Is it a patent violation? A patent validity shouldn't have anything to do whether the market moves or not. I think the TT's patent is too broad and/or has prior art and should not be granted. The patent clerk made a mistake.
Teddy, you should read the interview with TT's CEO in last month's SFO magazine. I think this will answer all of your questinos.
teddy, I agree with you. But it is sad to see the trading industry is being bullied by the mistakenly granted patent. As traders, we should feel worried that TradeMaven/NinjaTrader are losing users due to the patent. The fact is the whole trading community is losing choices. The healthy competitions among the trading frontend softwares are being suppressed by the mistakenly granted patent. The fact that the bid and ask move up and down along the price is a fact. It is a simple and well known fact with a long history. It is not just discovered by programmers nor it is invented by programmers several years ago. In all the charting softwares, the bars, either last price bars or ask/bid price bars, move along a static price on an axis. What happen, if a company XX files a patent on the static price axis and force other charting software to have the dynamic price axis that the bars stay still and prices on the axis or ladder move up and down? Isn't it silly? But it may be good for the company XX who will then be the only company that offers the useful chart with static price axis/ladder. Then we probably will not have choices of TradeStation, metastock, IB Chart, Sierra Chart, ensign Charts, ... Where are the guys/gals who first had the innovative idea of charts with static price axis/ladder?
It is not the concept of a static vertical price axis by itself that is patented. It is the combination of displayng the market depth (which charts don't do) on a static vertical price axis which allows single action order entry. All of those things together. The patent is on a much more narrow area than you are implying. Also, TT has shown that it is willing to license the concept as show by its license to patsystems. I don't think the patents in the US or Europe were given in error btw, since they were scrutinized actively for 5 years. Furthermore people are scouring the earth looking for prior art that will hold up in court and so far there simply isn't any.
What if somebody came up with a charting program that you could clik right on the prices in the right margin of the chart to transmit an order. Would that violate the patent?
Sounds like you work for TT. Here's my spin on the pats deal...... pats has new software that they are releasing that doesn't infringe. they don't have any free cash to spend in court so they settle by stating that they will license the TT patent. But here's the catch..... they will pay nothing. Why? their new release of code doesn't infringe. It's a win/win. TT gets the PR to spin and Pats doesn't spend any money defending their code.