TRADING TECHNOLOGIES GETS EU PATENT: Chicago-based Trading Technologies has been awarded a patent for its MD Trader product from the European Patent Office, extending protection of its intellectual property across the continent.

The patent relates to TT's MD Trader product, the market-depth-style order-entry screen incorporated in its X_Trader platform, which has been the subject of a number of patent lawsuits filed by the vendor against other software providers - both brokers and vendors - in its core market. Trading Technologies has already released an open letter to the futures industry in the US, laying out the licensing terms for their patents.

Unfortunately, none of the press releases mention the patent number, and I haven't had time to do a search for it. What is interesting is that, under current EPO practice, business methods are not patentable per se, and any kind of claim feature that is not "technical" will be parsed from the claim language during examination. I would love to have a peek at the allowed claims - could this be the precursor for a European invasion by TT? If it is, get ready for a lot of headline news (and the predictable clamor for the abolition of software patents) . . .