Number of Trading Technologies’ patent ruling appeals may grow even further
Six appeals in less than four months are apparently not sufficient for Trading Technologies, as the company asks the Court to de-consolidate cases.
Trading Technologies has been actively contesting decisions made by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), with six appeals filed in less than four months against such decisions. Although the number of actions undertaken by the company is already impressive, it may grow even further, as Trading Technologies has asked the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to de-consolidate two of the cases. If the Court sides with the company, the case in question will be split in two, resulting in more patent appeals.
As per the latest court filings in the case, captioned Trading Technologies Intl. v. IBG LLC (0:17-bcaag-02621), appellant Trading Technologies International, Inc. moves the Court to have appeal No. 18-1063 de-designated as a companion case to this appeal. According to the company, it appears that the two appeals may have been deemed companion cases inadvertently, as the two appeals stem from two different Covered Business Method CBM Review proceedings involving two separate patents from two different patent families.
Specifically, Case No. 17-2621 is an appeal from CBM2016-00051, which involved TT’s U.S. Patent No. 7,904,374 (“the ’374 patent”) and is a member of the Brumfield family. Case No. 18-1063 is an appeal from CBM2016-00032, which involved TT’s U.S. Patent No. 7,212,999 (“the ’999 patent”), and is a member of the Friesen family.
De-consolidation is not a popular measure for the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Moreover, the Appellees, including IBG LLC, Interactive Brokers LLC, TradeStation Group, Inc. and TradeStation Securities, Inc., have indicated that they object to this motion. Let’s note that the above-mentioned brokers are appellees in the other patent appeal cases recently launched by Trading Technologies.
Last month, IBG LLC and Interactive Brokers LLC said they do not believe that mediation would be fruitful at this time. TradeStation Group, Inc.and TradeStation Securities, Inc. also declared that the case is not amenable to mediation, as the parties strongly disagree about the merits of the case and are unlikely to reach agreement.
The patents in question refer to a graphical user interface for traders. Patent ‘999, for example, describes a GUI for an electronic trading system that allows a remote trader to view trends for an item, which assists the trader to anticipate demand for an item. For instance, the method comprises displaying a plurality of bid indicators, each corresponding to at least one bid for a quantity of the item, each bid indicator at a location along a first scaled axis of prices corresponding to a price associated with the at least one bid.
