CHICAGO - Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione, announced in a Thursday press release that the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted its requests for reexamination of US Patent Nos. 6,766,304 and 6,772,132. In the orders granting the reexaminations, the examiner agreed that the requests cite substantial new questions of patentability regarding the claims of each patent.

The patents, currently owned by Chicago-based Trading Technologies International Inc. (TT), relate to a user interface for entering trade orders. Specifically, the user interface has a display that includes a static price ladder and implements a specific order entry methodology. The goal of such systems is to reduce the time it takes to enter a trade order when electronically trading on an exchange.

Filed earlier this year, the Requests for Reexamination addressed whether the patented features were in existence prior to TT's patents -- thus making the patents invalid -- by citing a trading interface widely used in Japan by members of the Tokyo Stock Exchange that predates the TT patent filings.

"This marks a significant step forward in establishing that these patents are invalid," a shareholder in Brinks' Chicago office James L. Katz said, reiterating that these patents are of substantial interest to the members of the futures trading industry and their technology providers because of the aggressive enforcement actions taken by Trading Technologies.

In its 2004 "open letter" to the industry, TT demanded hundreds of millions of dollars a year in perpetuity for its patents. When the technology providers refused to pay, TT filed suit. In ongoing patent infringement litigation in the Northern District of Illinois between TT and eSpeed, a leading technology provider for the world's financial electronic markets, the court recently granted summary judgment of non-infringement in favor of eSpeed regarding eSpeed's most current generation of futures trading software. A trial has been set for September 10, 2007 to further consider the validity of these particular patents.

Founded in 1917, Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione is based in Chicago with four additional offices across the country serving the intellectual property needs of clients from around the world.

source: ag-ip news