PTAB

CBM2015-00172

TradeStation Group Inc v. Trading Technologies Intl Inc

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Displaying Market Information on a Graphical User Interface
  • Brief Description: The ’556 patent describes a method and system for displaying market information on a graphical user interface (GUI) for electronic trading. The purported invention adds a "value axis" to a conventional trading interface to display the potential profit or loss a trader would incur at various price levels.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-22 are Patent-Ineligible Under 35 U.S.C. §101 as Abstract Ideas

  • Legal Framework Relied Upon: Petitioner based its argument on the two-step framework from Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l and Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc. for determining patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. §101.
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Abstract Idea (Alice Step 1): Petitioner argued that the claims were directed to the abstract idea of a "fundamental economic practice," specifically, providing a trader with financial information (profit/loss calculations) to facilitate market trades. This practice, Petitioner contended, is a longstanding commercial concept that has been performed for centuries, either mentally or with pen and paper. The claims simply automate this fundamental concept by receiving market data, calculating potential profit/loss based on a user's position, and displaying the results.
    • Lack of Inventive Concept (Alice Step 2): Petitioner asserted that the claim elements, viewed individually and as an ordered combination, failed to add "significantly more" to transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible application. The claims merely recited the use of generic and conventional components, such as a "computing device" and a "graphical user interface," to perform their well-understood functions of receiving, computing, and displaying data. The core inventive feature—displaying profit/loss information along a "value axis"—was argued to be nothing more than performing simple arithmetic and displaying the result, which is not an inventive concept. Petitioner maintained that the claims did not improve the functioning of the computer itself or any other technology, but instead provided a solution to a business problem, not a technical one. The dependent claims were argued to add only conventional features, like single-action order entry, which the patent admitted was known in the prior art.

Ground 2: Claims 12-22 are Outside Permissible Statutory Classes Under §101

  • Legal Framework Relied Upon: Petitioner relied on §101's definition of statutory subject matter (process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter) and Federal Circuit precedent, particularly In re Nuijten, which held that transitory, propagating signals are not patentable subject matter.
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • This ground focused on the claim limitation "computer readable medium" recited in independent claim 12 and its dependents (13-22). Petitioner argued that under the broadest reasonable interpretation, this term was not limited to non-transitory media like hard drives or memory.
    • Petitioner contended that the term "medium" could be interpreted as "an intervening substance through which something else is transmitted or carried on," which would encompass transitory media such as wires, air, or a vacuum through which electrical or electromagnetic signals propagate.
    • Because the claims did not limit the "medium" to being "non-transitory," Petitioner argued they encompassed subject matter—specifically, transitory propagating signals per se—that falls outside the four statutory classes of patentable subject matter defined in §101. Consequently, claims 12-22 were argued to be invalid for this additional reason.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "Computer readable Medium" (Claims 12-22): Petitioner proposed that the broadest reasonable interpretation of "medium" was "an intervening substance through which something else is transmitted or carried on." This construction was central to Ground 2, as Petitioner argued it was not limited to physical, non-transitory media and therefore covered non-statutory transitory signals. Petitioner supported this interpretation by citing dictionary definitions and language in the specification stating that acceptable media include "any other medium from which a computer can read."

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requested institution of Covered Business Method (CBM) patent review and cancellation of claims 1-22 of the ’556 patent as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §101.