• Interactive Brokers LLC / CQG, Inc. et al. v. Chart Trading Development, LLCAll claims unpatentable
  PTAB · Aug 18, 2017 · CBM2016-00038 · APJ Brian J Mcnamara · CBM · Final written decision

  Claims 1–42 are unpatentable under § 101 as patent-ineligible and under § 103 as obvious over Friesen, Jones, and Kirwin.

  RulingsFinal written decision

  • Claim Construction › Intrinsic evidence (Phillips canons) › Preamble limiting or notPreamble not limitingDecided for petitioner

    “We agree with Petitioner that the term “interactive graphical representation of a market” in the preamble is not limiting. Pet. Reply. 4–5. The organization of claims 1 and 9 is similar—claim 1 recites a method for providing an interactive graphical representation of a market and claim 9 recites an apparatus for providing an interactive graphical representation of a market. Thus, the argued term merely sets forth an intended use for the claimed method and apparatus, and it is the elements of the claim that define this term in the preamble. See Pitney Bowes, Inc. v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 182 F.3d 1298, 1305 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (“If, however, the body of the claim fully and intrinsically sets forth the complete invention, including all of its limitations, and the preamble offers no distinct definition of any of the claimed invention’s limitations, but rather merely states, for example, the purpose or intended use of the invention, then the preamble is of no significance to claim construction because it cannot be said to constitute or explain a claim limitation.”).” slip op. at 6

  • Claim Construction › Intrinsic evidence (Phillips canons) › Plain and ordinary meaning to a POSITATerm construed board ownDecided for patent owner

    “serves as a trading interface. Although we consider the term in the preamble to be non-limiting, for purposes of clarity, we address its construction in this Decision. Having considered the above arguments, we determine that our initial construction was not the broadest reasonable interpretation. Both method claim 1 and apparatus claim 9 recite “providing an interactive graphical representation of a market.” Our initial construction reads into the preamble term “interactive” a feature that concerns allowing a user to place a trade. However the preamble term “interactive” does not require such a limited view of user interactions. An “interactive graphical representation of a market” encompasses a broader spectrum of user interactions with the graph of the market than making trades. The provided graphical representation is a graph of a market. The graph is interactive because it is presented to the user in a form that the user can interact with it. Other features recited in the claim, e.g., allowing a user to select a portion of the graph, define the scope of that interaction. Thus, we construe “an interactive graphical representation of a market” to mean a graph of a market presented to a user in such a form that the user can take actions using the graph.” slip op. at 6

  • Skill levelOther

    “ORDINARY SKILL IN THE ART Petitioner contends that one of ordinary skill in the art includes someone who, through education or practical experience, possesses the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in computer science, information science, or a related field and has at least two years of work experience developing or implementing user interfaces for electronic trading systems. Pet. 13 (citing Ex. 1002, Declaration of Bernard S. Donefer (“Donefer Decl.”) ¶ 45). Patent Owner contends that a person of ordinary skill would have a bachelor’s degree in computer science or equivalent experience, and at least three years of experience in designing and/or developing user interfaces, including experience designing and/or developing graphical user interfaces for electronic trading. PO Resp. 13 (citing Declaration of Nazaar Molokhia (“Molokhia Decl.”) ¶¶ 14–15). Notwithstanding their one year difference in experience level, we find the parties’ assessments of the level of ordinary skill not to be materially different.” slip op. at 8

  • Expert testimonyPetitioner expert creditedDecided for petitioner

    “testimony because he lacks requisite education and experience to satisfy either party’s definition of a person of ordinary skill. PO Resp. 14–22. Patent Owner acknowledges that Mr. Donefer “may well be experienced with the business considerations of traders and financial institution by virtue of his degrees in two fields of business and his work experience in the business departments of various financial institutions.” PO Resp. 20. Patent Owner argues, however, that Mr. Donefer’s business experience is not a substitute for the relevant technical experience needed to testify as to claim construction, the scope of the ’190 Patent claims, the state of the art, anticipation or obviousness. Id. at 21–22. In addition to the arguing that Mr. Donefer does not have the technical background that his testimony states is a baseline for one of ordinary skill, Patent Owner notes that Mr. Donefer has always held non-technical positions as a project manager and testified that he never used trading software allowing a trader to place a trade directly from a graph and that he does not know when products with such features were introduced to the market. Id. at 18–19. Petitioner contends that Mr. Donefer is more experienced than a typical end user of an electronic trading system and has been developing such systems for many years. Pet. Reply 3. Petitioner emphasizes that, in addition to his bachelor’s in economics and MBA in finance, Mr. Donefer also minored in information systems. Id. at 2. Petitioner further notes that, as a consultant and project manager, Mr. Donefer has extensive experience developing, designing, and implementing graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and that Mr. Donefer was recognized by Fidelity Investments for his work in developing an electronic trading system. Id. at 3. Although, that system did not represent market information in a graph, information it provided to other terminals, such as those used by Bloomberg, may have been presented as graphical information. Ex. 2026, Transcript of Deposition of Bernard S. Donefer (“Donefer Tr.”), 72:16–73:11. At his level of professional responsibility, Mr. Donefer works on system architecture to accommodate trader needs—he acknowledges that he does not code programs and does not teach programming in the college courses he teaches. Ex. 2026, Donefer Tr., 30:10–33:18, 36:19–22. Nevertheless, Mr. Donefer takes courses in programming languages, such as C++, R and Python, to keep up with languages that his students are using. Id. at 54:4–56:5. The college-level courses Mr. Donefer teaches—in IT in financial markets and financial information systems—address order management systems, and Mr. Donefer occasionally invites order management vendors to demonstrate such systems to students. Id. at 35:10– 36:13. Mr. Donefer teaches prospective business analysts about business processes and business problems in order to design solutions, focusing on turning requirements into documentation a coder can use to implement a business process, rather than on coding itself. See id. at 38:10–41:8. There is no requirement imposed by the Federal Rules of Evidence” slip op. at 9

  Patent outcomesUS 7,113,190 unpatentable
  Claim construction§ 101 eligibility§ 103 obviousnesscites Alice · Mayo · Enfish · Electric Power · KSR · Graham
  Patents in suitUS 7,113,190

Holdings, summaries, rulings, issues, outcomes, winners and claim constructions shown for a decision were generated by a large language model reading the opinion. They are a guide to the decision, not the decision. Confirm every one against the court's own text before relying on it. Outcomes read from the patent owner’s side. Party names are extracted from the decision and are missing on about 900 short Director denials and scans, which carry the trial number instead.