PTAB

CBM2016-00031

TradeStation Group Inc v. Trading Technologies Intl Inc

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Graphical User Interface for Electronic Trading
  • Brief Description: The ’996 patent discloses a graphical user interface (GUI) and method for electronic trading designed to increase speed and efficiency. The core innovation claimed is a display featuring a static price axis alongside which dynamic indicators for bid and ask quantities move, allowing a trader to place an order for a commodity at a desired price with a single user action.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-20 are Patent-Ineligible Under 35 U.S.C. §101

  • Core Argument: Petitioner argued that the challenged claims are directed to the abstract idea of making market trades based on displayed market information—a fundamental economic practice that long predates computers. The petition asserted that this concept was historically performed using pen and paper, with specialists maintaining books that plotted bids and asks along a vertical price axis.
  • Inventive Concept Analysis: Petitioner contended that implementing this abstract idea on a generic computer does not add an inventive concept sufficient to confer patent eligibility under the Alice test. The claims were characterized as merely reciting well-understood, routine, and conventional activities, such as receiving and displaying data on a GUI. Elements like the "static price axis" were argued to be insignificant post-solution activity, representing only a conventional way to organize and display data rather than a technological improvement to the computer itself. The patent’s own specification was cited as admitting that the invention could be implemented on any conventional computing system using known techniques, thus failing to solve a technical problem or improve computer functionality.

Ground 2: Claims 1-20 are obvious over Silverman, Gutterman, and Togher

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Silverman (Patent 5,077,665), Gutterman (Patent 5,297,031), and Togher (Patent 5,375,055).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that the combination of these three references teaches every limitation of the challenged claims. Silverman was cited for disclosing a computerized trading exchange that dynamically displays bid and offer information as graphical boxes positioned along a static price axis, including an indicator for the "inside market" (highest bid/lowest ask). Gutterman was alleged to teach a similar trading GUI where the displayed order icons were interactive, allowing a user to select an icon to initiate an order. Togher was introduced to supply the remaining key features: the ability for a user to designate a default order quantity and the capability of executing a trade via a single action (e.g., a single mouse click on a "Buy" or "Sell" button). The combination of Silverman's display layout with Gutterman's interactive icons and Togher's single-action, default-quantity ordering was argued to render the claims of the ’996 patent obvious.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner argued a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would combine these references for predictable results. The primary motivation was to increase the speed, efficiency, and accuracy of placing trades, a well-known and paramount goal in the field of electronic trading. Since all three references operate in the same field and use conventional computer technology, a POSITA would have found it obvious to integrate Gutterman’s interactive GUI features into Silverman’s static display to improve usability. Adding Togher's single-action and default-quantity features was presented as a simple substitution of known elements to further streamline the trading process and reduce user input, a common objective in UI design.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success in making this combination. Integrating known interactive elements onto a known display format would predictably yield a faster and more efficient trading interface without changing the fundamental principles of operation of any of the combined systems.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner also asserted that claims 1-20 are invalid under §101 for being directed to non-statutory subject matter. This argument relied on a proposed claim construction for "computer-readable medium" that would encompass transitory, propagating signals, which are not a statutory class of patentable subject matter.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "Computer Readable Medium": Petitioner proposed that the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) of this term is "an intervening substance through which something else is transmitted or carried on." This construction was argued to be broad enough to encompass non-statutory subject matter like transitory signals, forming the basis for one of the §101 challenges.
  • "Single Action": Petitioner relied on the definition provided in the patent's specification: "any action by a user within a short period of time, whether comprising one or more clicks of a mouse button or other input device, is considered a single action."

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of a Covered Business Method (CBM) patent review and cancellation of claims 1-20 of Patent 7,813,996 as unpatentable.