Coup de Grace

I don't place work-related info in my blog, and certainly nothing on any of my clients. I caught this news when I was in Atlanta this week. It is sooo satisfying. We may come to see that the prosecuting attorneys were getting the wool pulled over their eyes by the patent owners. Who knows, maybe the attorneys had something to do with tricking the PTO too, but the court hasn't yet decided whether inequitable conduct was also a reason to invalidate the patent?

> Jury Invalidates eSpeed Patent In Bond-Market Suit
> IP Law Bulletin (Tuesday, February 22, 2005)
>
> In a blow to bond dealer Cantor Fitzgerald, a Delaware jury has found
> that eSpeed Inc.'s patent on electronic bond-trading technology is
> invalid.

Yeah!

> "The jury has found that eSpeed's patent is invalid and we look
> forward to the judge's decision on whether the patent was acquired by
> inequitable conduct," said Michael Spencer, Group CEO of ICAP
> commented.
>
> The defendants claim that eSpeed was already using its electronic
> trading system commercially before it obtained its patent, and
> allegedly hid that fact from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Let's see if that one gets proved up!

> eSpeed denies any impropriety in connection with the older trading
> system, and says its source code and many of the people who knew about
> it may have been lost in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the
> World Trade Center.

Lutnick's despicable. He already dealt that poor-me card when he cried on 60 Minutes.

> BrokerTec and eSpeed facilitate the trading of many kinds of bonds and
> are among the largest wholesale traders of U.S. Treasuries, a $3.3
> trillion market according to The Bond Market Association, a trade
> group.
>
> The court also noted that "if proven BrokerTec's claim of inequitable
> conduct would invalidate the entire patent."

One can only hope....