Trading Technologies Wins Patent Verdict

Trading Technologies, a Chicago software company that has rifled off multiple vendor and broker lawsuits over alleged violations of its electronic trading patent, won a $3.5 million verdict against a Cantor Fitzgerald bond network unit in a Northern Illinois federal district court. Trading Technologies claimed in its suit that eSpeed and affiliates eSpeed International and Ecco Ware violated its patent for its MD Trader order-screen entry technology, which displays multiple prices to judge market depth. In recent years, Trading Technologies has settled out of court with several other traders it accused of violating patents, such as Kingstree Trading, Ninja Trader, Goldenberg Hehmeyer and the UK-based Man Group. Trading Technology currently The eSpeed decision came while the U.S. Patent office is re-examining the TT patents which eSpeed views as having “unsupportable” claims. In a statement, eSpeed chairman and CEO Howard W. Lutnick says the jury’s verdict will have no impact on eSpeed’s current products, which “have already been found to not infringe the patents that were litigated in this case…which addressed a minor three-year old matter covering only the period of August to December 2004.”