Trading Technologies settles patent suit
By Jeremy Grant in Chicago
Published: September 30 2004 23:49 | Last updated: September 30 2004 23:49
Trading Technologies, one of the world's largest providers of software for the futures industry, on Thursday settled a patent infringement lawsuit it filed this week against a Chicago-based broker in an apparent attempt to encourage other potential targets to settle.
Trading Technologies on Tuesday filed the suit against Goldenberg, Hehmeyer & Co, alleging infringement of two US patents that were awarded to the software company in August.
The filing had raised the spectre of multiple lawsuits against other brokers and software firms that Trading Technologies might have suspected of also infringing its patents.
However by settling with Goldenberg on Thursday, Trading Technologies appears to have signaled its willingness to settle with potential litigation targets before taking legal action.
The development is significant because the list of potential targets includes scores of brokers with their own proprietary trading systems, as well as Trading Technologies' rivals in the Independent Software Vendors (ISV) industry.
ISVs are a new breed of technology providers that offer crucial software links between derivatives exchanges' electronic trading systems to thousands of traders around the world. Many ISVs have grown rapidly in the last five years and include UK-based Patsystems, EasyScreen, Rolfe & Nolan and Ffastfill, as well as Orc Software of Sweden and France-based GL Trade. They have customers that include the world's largest brokers and derivatives exchanges.
Trading Technologies estimates that more than 50 per cent of electronic trades in the world's top four futures exchanges - Eurex, Euronext-Liffe, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade - goes through its order entry system alone. Many ISVs became nervous six weeks ago when Trading Technologies issued its first patent infringement suit against eSpeed, the electronic bond trading unit of Cantor Fitzgerald.
Many ISVs grew rapidly from their roots as start-up businesses and did not bother to patent the technology they had developed, some of it possibly based, even loosely, on existing ISVs' technologies.
Under the deal with Goldenberg, the broker admitted infringement of Trading Technologies' patents and will in the future licence the ISV's technology.
Details of the licence have not yet been made public. Harris Brumfield, chief executive of Trading Technologies, said: "Goldenberg, Hehmeyer is one of TT's largest and most loyal customers, and we are excited to move forward with [them] as the first licensee of TT's patents." |
