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TradingTechnologies DOM patent and royalty licensing fees
Metaltrade, I think your position seems biased because you have a conflict of interest. You are defending an issue, or more specifically a product, because it makes you a livelyhood, and that livelyhood would be affected without it. My position on the TT issue is totally unbiased, I don't use X-Trader, I don't trade with a DOM, never have never will. If TT goes out of business today, and X-trader ceases to exist, it will not affect me one bit, so I have nothing to loose or gain from their success or failure. I just think the tactics that they use are unfair to smaller companies. If it were not for the prohibitive litigation costs, that patent would have already been history, and TT is milking that fact for all it is worth. I do agree with tort reform, If TT knew it would have to pay all court fees for every litigation threat, they would abandon this tactic, because they would be losing in court every time. You just can't subjectively litigate software ideas, the odds would be against them every time.
What if Ninjatrader (or whoever pioneered chart trader) said no one can use chart trader unless they pay, and I/RT said no one can implement market profile, or a volume breakdown type indicators unless they pay a fee, or eSignal says no one can use colors on their charts unless they pay? Who makes the decision that colors on a chart is not as innovative as vertical price levels on a DOM ladder? What if every company had the TT mentality, and they patented, and forced fees for every thing new they came up with? Where would the industry be? How would that foster progress and innovation? How much would we, as end users, be paying for each trade transaction?
TT tried to get the exchanges to pay a blanket fee, because maybe, just maybe, the trader putting in the order might be using a DOM... maybe! Are you kidding me? Are you seriously telling me you support that point of view?
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge capitalist and a libertarian, everyone tries to make a buck the best way they know how, that's healthy. I'm just saying there are practical business models and less practical models.
In the case of the recording artists, they had to adjust their business model. Bands like Metallica and others tried very hard to join in the fight against piracy....and the recording companies had to really scratch their heads to determine just how they were going to make money going forward. Hence you see the proliferation of digital media and Itunes and ala carte music purchases....so instead of trying to convince a customer to purchase a CD for $18 a pop (which cost them pennies to manufacture) they had to adjust to the reality of the situation.....now they make a good deal of money off people buying individual songs for a small price....MANY people would now rather pay a small fee for the legal right to own a song and the recording companies are making money off that again. The same concept is true for VEVO and Youtube..who make money off the advertising for streaming the music for free. (Pandora is another one that comes to mind).
I don't blame TT, I'd do the same thing if I were them.....I just think that if I came up with a great indicator, and everyone started using it (by crafting their own code) it would be a bit foolish for me to try to go after every guy who coded his own version of an idea that forged first.
There are some ideas and intellectual capital that are practical to patent and some that are less practical....that's all I'm saying.
The kid that started Groupon with his partner for example....would have a hard time convincing the high court that it was he and he alone that came up with the general concept for "group purchases." There are just some concepts that are nebulous and difficult to prove that they came up with the first and only original application. It'd be akin to trying to patent the use of the internet...look what it did for Al Gore....
If you want a more relevant example....I wonder if there's a patent on the trading matrix, or perhaps the use of the trailing stop, or the bracket order, or any other example of commonly used trading tools that most platforms incorporate. Patents are good and healthy for encouraging innovation, but at some point, you have to ask yourself just how practical it would be to try to patent "the login" concept and go after every software company that uses a login prompt.
The TT DOM patent doesnt really seem to pass the test of being non-obvious to me. There are only so many ways one could possibly display a series of numbers like order book numbers. Displaying the series vertically is patented by TT , horizontally is patented by CQG. What is left? Display the numbers diagonally?
I mean, does anyone really think that if TT hadn't 'invented' the DOM that no one else would have come up with a way for anyone to view order book data?
If you were to ask 10 ordinary interface designers who had never seen a DOM before to create a visual way to display orders in an order book, I'm pretty sure some of them would come up with something that looks like a DOM.
Also their patent doesnt seem to cover the entire concept of a DOM, it just covers a DOM that doesn't move; a 'static' DOM. Being able to patent the idea of something 'not moving' seems pretty silly to me.
Remember patents are not a natural right. They are created by the US Constitution to " To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Did granting TT a monopoly on the DOM really promote the progress of science and useful arts? It seems to me that its doing the opposite.
I realize this thread is over a year old, but I just joined and came across this discussion -- and the one involving the supposed copying of indications by other sites. I wanted to poke around at the issue a bit and was curious if anyone here has actually looked at the patent. I'd like to see it myself to see what it claims. Anyone have the patent number?
Also, is it customary here to claim copyright in posted code? I am not yet an elite member, so I haven't been able to determine whether code posters have a copyright claim in posted code.
BigMike, do you have a disclaimer/term of use posted somewhere (I couldn't find one) alerting users that posting code to this site is a waiver of copyright?
This area of IP regarding platform configuration fascinates me...
