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TradingTechnologies DOM patent and royalty licensing fees
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!"
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
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.
