Yet I do not understand why I should not be able to use Dynamic SuperDOM while static DOM is enabled...
Yet I also do not understand the policy, when I've requested from support to enable Static DOM for IB paper money testing I was told I'd still have to purchase the "credit" to be able to use static DOM. So IB /Interactive Broker/ is not charging anything extra /well you have to fund your account with IB's minimum requirement so it is not entirely free/ using their paper money system but NT would charge 20c per round-trip. Sorry, I found this is unacceptable.
For anyone paying an additional 20c per round-trip on trades generating income shall become a business decision besides the technicalities.
In my case I find it to steep to pay an additional ~10% over my commission for a functionality I can get somewhere else seemingly with no extra cost doing what I need.
Sometimes I've wondered if NT is really in the having happy longterm customers business???
NT as a product and as an organization last my trust and now I have no idea how that trust could be reinstated.
- Our licensing agreement with TT states that any trade generated from our application when the static SupeDOM is enabled is liable for the patent fee thus you cannot use the dynamic SuperDOM and bypass the patent fee
- NinjaTrader does not differentiate between a broker’s live or demo system, in some cases we are unable to differentiate. Thus, the patent fees apply. However, we have our own built in simulator that bypasses this fee.
- Of course our goal is to have a happy long term customer base but of course, we can’t please everyone.
- I do understand the nature of your requirement but unfortunately I can’t accommodate you since I am legally bound to a licensing agreement I entered into nearly six years ago.
NinjaTrader my comments below:
"when the static SupeDOM is enabled is liable for the patent fee thus you cannot use the dynamic SuperDOM and bypass the patent fee" - your logic does not make any sense here...
I am coder or at least used to be one, therefore I know you can do anything with code what you want. It is always just a question of time and money, having said that the 2 DOMs shall not be exclusive if the code is smartly written, meaning static DOM being enabled does behave as you expect it such complains when no credit available, in the same time there is no good reason to disable the dynamic DOM.
"our goal is to have a happy long term customer base but of course, we can’t please everyone." - partially agreed however if you read this thread through, your company has pissed off a lots of people who paid a good money for your product.
I am sure everyone who currently decided not to use NT at all or just for certain functions, has started with a lots of ambition, plans and took a while to get on the other side of the fence...
NinjaTrader entered into a licensing agreement with Trading Technologies. As part of their standard licensing terms, I have to charge 0.10 per side for any futures trade executed through any part of the NinjaTrader application when the static SuperDOM is enabled independent if it is used or not.
This is not a "coding" issue but a "licensing requirement".
Such a shame with a patent that was always pretty dubious imho. I can completely understand why ninja acquiesced, some much larger companies got embroiled in what I guess was expensive litigation.
It always struck me very like the Microsoft Apple look and feel lawsuits where A court ruled that, Apple could not get patent-like protection for the idea of a graphical user interface. Just as there was nothing new with a DOM there was nothing new in Apple & MS's operating systems (Xerox had done it all before). Seems to me a DOM is very much a Graphical User Interface.
I also seem to remember that TT pursued the exchanges at one point asking for a surcharge on every single transaction. Their argument being that as the exchange could not sure that any particular trade infringed there (dubious) patent they should extract a fee from all trades and pass it on just to be safe. (The threat was just to be safe from litigation of course).
I don't know how TT was able to get away with this. I have always been personally outraged by that idea, it is downright extortion, and for that I will never use any TT product. If we all boycott them, then let's see how much their patent is worth.
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How would you feel when you think and create something and then your competitor says: oh this is nice, let me program the same. That's not how Intellectual Copyright works in our Western world.
Copying everybody else ideas works in other countries but it's resulting in lack of innovation.
Last time we got something useful newly invented from China was 1500 years ago.
I understand that they are in business to make money, and have the right to profit for their original work, but I think the TT leadership have a predator mentality, trying to wield legal advantage to squeeze money out of every avenue they can think of. Going as far as trying to charge the exchanges just because the end user may or may not be using a static dom? That is not just capitalistic anymore, that is predatory. Who do you think is paying for all those fees they are charging? And, I think we can all agree that TT is not charging everybody and their brother because they want to foster innovation from their competitors, they just want to rape everybody.
I agree with you... as long as the patent is legitimate.
Case in point;
NTP filed suit against RIM (BlackBerry) for $1 billion dollars and got an injunction that would have forced RIM to stop doing business in the US until the suit was settled. The suit hinged on an obscure patent that NTP had bought.
Facing being shutdown, RIM settled the case for $615 million.
Several weeks later the patent office issued its second final rejection on NTP's patents -- meaning that it was almost to the point where the patents were ruled invalid.
I'm just a simple man trading a simple plan.
My daddy always said, "Every day above ground is a good day!"
But in the case of the DOM. It's clearly an invention by Trading Technologies and copied without shame by anybody who makes a trading program.
I hate paying the extremely high x-trader fee, but the X-trader dom works just so darned good. I understand they sue anybody around there about it. I would do just the same when everybody in the business copied my idea, and if I would have the funds for it. You could also reverse it, and say x-trader is so expensive because they have to sue everybody.
The Chinese neither invented the One nor the Zero. The Zero came to us from India, and without that Zero neither Bill nor Steve would have made it very far.
The abacus requires more than two digits to perform the calculations, so compared to an IPAD it is pretty sophisticated.
As long as we're wondering in this thread, I find it curious that a company would chase ghosts with respect to patent law on nebulous concepts.
Just because I combine 2 ingredients in my kitchen, doesn't give me the right to patent it and sue anyone else who happens to find it suitable.
Code is less nebulous...and easier to patent, but the idea of a particular configuration of parameters being intellectual property isn't really a solid/tenable position. Any good patent lawyer would have told them that. There are very few absolutes in a courtroom, which is why arguments range from weak to strong.....trying to patent the concept of a DOM is about as weak as trying to patent the combination of chocolate and peanut butter.........even if you COULD do it, going after every person that codes their own version isn't really feasible or practical.
The second part (feasibility and practicality) is what still plagues intellecutal and artistic rights from porn to music to movies. Just because you own the rights to something, doesn't mean that you'll be able to effectively enforce it. The RIAA can no easier stem piracy through legal means than the porn producer who's frustrated because people aren't buying his DVD's that are now on free porn sites. Both industries have been decimated recently.
The only viable solution is through technology and preventing people from accessing the intellectual property. Software companies and music/movies are making headway against black markets.
In the case of the DOM, there's really nothing to stop anyone from taking the concept and coding their own version and there's virtually no way to stop/regulate them from doing so....legally or technically.....
As I said, they'd have been better off to get a competent lawyer who could have told them this in the first place or listened to the one they had. Trying to effectively patent and regulate the use of a "DOM" is akin to trying to patent and regulate the concept of a mancave. If some other guy builds his own mancave, and you came up with the idea......good luck on collecting your perceived due compensation or preventing every other swinging richard from doing the same.
I think if the DOM patent was challenge and litigated, TT would loose. I don't know if anyone has tried. TT is using the fear of litigation, and potential cost of litigation to force other companies to pay them for a concept. They know full well that these smaller companies like NinjaTrader, etc. are too small to bear the burden to litigate. Of course those companies are going to agree to pay a fee, because that fee is passed directly on to us, it costs them nothing. We are the ones being raked over the coals. It is pure extortion. Why aren't the exchanges paying TT? Because they had enough capital to be willing to go to court and challenge them. I think the moment a couple of companies start challenging the TT litigation threats from that patent, we will see that monopoly laid to rest. It is just way to difficult to litigate software.
The tactic is similar to SLAPP lawsuits, which is where a larger firm uses the threat of legal fees to influence the actions of smaller, less resourced entities. Even if they know they have a weak case, a large, well resourced organization can use the very threat of litigation and the impending costs to coerce others into actions more favorable to them.
This is a key area where tort reform would help tremendously, but attorneys, like our illustrious President, refuse to allow it, because they would piss off every lawyer and lobbyist involved....
Imagine the impact on medical care costs if Doctor's were able to do what they thought was right, rather than mountains of CYA policies they have to endure for insurance companies who are afraid of attorneys.....but that is a discussion for another thread. As it stands, doctors hide behind insurance policy and excessive care requirements to upsell patients for a bunch of crap they know the patient does not need.
If we enacted tort reform either at the state level and or the federal level that made the losing party pay all legal fees and burdens (in civil suits), it would totally reduce this sort of tactic.
Firms and their counsel would think VERY long and hard about bringing suits they thought were even remotely questionable, because they'd live in fear of having to pay the other sides defense costs if they lost. As it stands, it's pretty much up to a judge/jury to award counter-suit claims for legal burden and it's a bit counterintuitive.
it's as if to say...."If you're awarding someone a counter-suit claim for legal fees, why in the Sam Hell did you allow the suit in the first place." I'll tell you why. Judges and courts are just like everyone else...they're broke...they need cases to generate fees and revenue just like everyone else. The whole system needs some rework.
RM99, thanks for your replies but your metaphors are completely off the balance here.
TT created a concept of a depth of market screen that was unique in the world wide trading scene. It was so good they created in a short time an absolute market leader position in trade execution. I have read that around 60% of all manual transactions are made with X-trader. Yes, it's that good.
As a X-trader user again I agree there's just no better DOM than the x-trader DOM. I learned a trading technique that how strange it might sounds don't work good without x-trader since I need to see exactly how many contracts have been traded at the bid or the ask and I need to see approx. what my order position is in the que compared to other orders.
All trading software who contains a DOM is just a shameless COPY of the efforts, creativity and investments of Trading Technologies in creating something unique that works extremely well for traders.
While in many cases with intellectual property it's a bloody tin line, but in the case of the DOM it's clear IMHO that TT deserves every credit, right and money for their invention. Again, the metaphors used are just a joke compared to the shameless copy of the DOM from X-trader from any software in this industry.
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?
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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.
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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...
I don't use the DOM and I doubt I am the only one. Maybe NT should make a version without the Static DOM.
I tested a platform by an Israeli company. I think they got around the patent by pacing the movement to where price , though not static, stayed in view.
I'm just a simple man trading a simple plan.
My daddy always said, "Every day above ground is a good day!"
Would appear that their static DOM patent is valid BUT that you are not infringing it as long as you recentre automatically. That means that you could recenter after 20 ticks either side and not infringe. In other words, you could be static for a move of a certain amount of ticks and then re-centre. This would not infringe the patent.
TT tried to change to saying a non-static DOM meant it had to move each time the bid/ask moved but it appears they got told to go forth.
They also have a patent on the default quantity buttons....
So you could just get it to recentre automatically after 999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 ticks, have an extra button to close the window and be sweet as a nut?
To clarify, one can also avoid such charge by using the Dynamic SuperDOM which is the default DOM you get at Mirus. You have to request from them to enable the static SuperDOM which then triggers the extra charge.
@ThatManFromTexas
What does the buy the range do? Does it put a limit order at the bid and ask or does it just split the difference. Also where can I find out what all those pretty numbers on the left side of the y-axis come from?
I trade on Range Bars. The Buy Range / Sell Range places a Stop Limit Order or Market Order at the projected High Bar Close or Projected Low Bar Close. If price closes against the trend, I cancel the order.
Pretty Numbers Explanation
I'm just a simple man trading a simple plan.
My daddy always said, "Every day above ground is a good day!"
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According to what MultiCharts said in a futures.io (formerly BMT) webinar (they have a mostly static DOM as well), as long as price only 're-centers' every certain amount of time (ie: 10 seconds), then it is not static and does not violate the patent. You would need to watch webinar for exact wording, I am going from memory.
Sierra does not re-center at all. If price goes off the ladder, you have to manually take action.
In any case , its so ridiculous how you can patent a software idea. And couldn't anyone just incorporate outside of the US to get around these stupid laws?
Samsung and Apple have been filing patent infringement lawsuits against each other in multiple countries. Apple in February filed a patent lawsuit against Samsung in the U.S., asking a federal judge to halt sales of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone. Apple recently lost a ruling in a German court, which paved the way for Samsung to sell the Galaxy Tab 10.1N tablet there.
I'm just a simple man trading a simple plan.
My daddy always said, "Every day above ground is a good day!"
I know it's been quite awhile since anyone posted on this topic, but I'm interested to know when TT's patent for the static DOM expires. I've done a few searches on google, but I'm not turning up any results that list an expiration date.
Does anyone here know when TT's patent for the static DOM is supposed to expire?
Patrick Rooney (the Product Marketing Manager at Trading Technologies) will be monitoring this thread so that he may answer any questions that you post here about the products and services offered by Trading Technologies (commonly abbreviated to TT).
Hey guys, i know its a little bit late and off topic but im hardly
search the patent for marketprofile or tpo chart
I want to know whats exactly under patent
As i know more and more software packages and indicator
companies provide marketprofile and tpo charts illegal
(there are monthly fees to cbot as i know)
Does anybody know where exactly i can ask for a licenses and where i can find this patent online?
