Trading Screen Displaying “Profits & Loss” Data Not Eligible for Patenting

In Trading Technologies International, Inc. v. IBG LLC, No. 2017-2323 (Fed. Cir. April 30, 2019), the Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s decision, holding that Trading Technologies’ U.S. Patent No. 7,783,556 was eligible for CBM review and the challenged claims were not patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

The ’556 patent relates to displaying market information on a screen and generating values that are derivatives of price, including profit and loss information, and then displaying these values along an axis on the display. IBG and others filed for CBM review of the ’556 patent. The Board issued a final written decision finding the challenged claims are not patent eligible under § 101. Trading Technologies appealed.

On appeal, the Federal Circuit agreed that the ’556 patent was eligible for CBM review. The Court explained that the challenged claims were directed to a “business problem” to provide traders additional information, such as profit and loss data, on an existing trading screen. The Court held that this was not a technological solution because it “improv[ed] the trader, not the functioning of the computer.”

The Court also affirmed the Board’s conclusion that the claims were directed to an unpatentable abstract idea of calculating and displaying information that “is nothing more than ‘mere automation of manual processes using computers.’” The Court also held that the claims failed to recite an inventive concept because the claimed trading screen simply took the prior art trading screen and added profit and loss values along the axis. Accordingly, the Court concluded the claims were ineligible under § 101.