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Wall Street Patent Infringement Case: CBOE Case Remanded

By Tanya Roth, Esq. on May 09, 2012 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

It’s not only high-tech and bio-tech companies that fight patent cases before financial services industry. But if you read many of the posts on this blog, you’ll notice that most of the patent cases we talk about come from either of those two industries.

So today for a change, we bring you a patent case from the world of Wall Street. Or close enough. The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) is facing patent infringement claims by the International Securities Exchange (ISE) over a system used for trading options contracts, reports Bloomberg News.

ISE appealed the final judgment of the district court, which held that the trading system of CBOE did not infringe ISE's patent.

The lawsuit was first brought in November 2006, where ISE accused CBOE of infringement of its primary patent, U.S. Patent No. 6,618,707, titled "Automated Exchange for Trading Derivative Securities." In the lower court ruling, CBOE prevailed.

But their victory was short lived.

The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case on Monday, holding that the trial judge erred when interpreting the patent held by International Securities Exchange. Specifically, the court held that the interpretation of the words "system memory means," "matching," and "automated exchange" was erroneous. ISE came out in 2000 with an all-electronic U.S. options exchange.

CBOE operates a Hybrid Trading System. In its original lawsuit, ISE contented that parts of CBOE's Hybrid Trading System infringed ISE's patent. CBOE's Hybrid Trading System is a combination of floor-based "open outcry" trading and electronic trading.

The case is now heading back to the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

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