US 7113190

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number.

Let me check for any 2026 Federal Circuit activity and confirm the current ownership status.

US Patent 7,113,190 — Summary

Verification note: I have reviewed the authoritative full text of US 7,113,190 B2 and searched for litigation/appeal records. All identifiers below are reported exactly as found; I did not correct or normalize any numbers.

Bibliographic Data

Abstract

"Systems and methods for providing an interactive graphical representation of a market for an electronic trading system are provided. A graph may be displayed on a display of a workstation in an electronic trading system. In one example, the graph may include a curve corresponding to a range of values of a financial instrument. In another example, the graph may include symbols that represent bids and offers for one or more financial instruments. A user may be allowed to select a portion of the graph. In response to the user's selection, a trading dialog box may be provided, thereby allowing the user to place a trade directly from the graph."

Independent Claims — Plain Language

The patent has 42 claims and four independent claims: 1, 9, 17, and 30. Note that the issued claims recite an "interactive trading dialog box … configured to receive an instruction from the user, the instruction comprising a selection of at least one of a bid, offer, hit and lift" — this language is broader/different than the pre-grant publication US 2004/0100467 A1, which merely recited "displaying a trading dialog box." The claims below reflect the granted text.

Claim 1 — Method (curve-based). Draw a graph with a first axis and a second axis on a workstation display, where the graph includes a curve corresponding to a range of values of a financial instrument. Let a user select a portion of the graph. In response, display an interactive trading dialog box that can receive a user instruction selecting at least one of a bid, offer, hit, or lift.

Claim 9 — Apparatus (curve-based). The server-side counterpart to claim 1: a server storage device plus server processor running a server program that performs the identical display/select/display-dialog-box steps.

Claim 17 — Method (bid/offer symbol-based). Same overall flow, but instead of (or in addition to) a curve, the graph includes a first set of symbols each corresponding to a bid for a particular financial instrument and a second set of symbols each corresponding to an offer, with the same user-selection → interactive trading dialog box step.

Claim 30 — Apparatus (bid/offer symbol-based). The server-side counterpart to claim 17.

Key dependents worth noting

• Claims 2, 10, 18, 31: first axis = maturity date.
• Claims 3/11/19/32 and 4/12/20/33: second axis = price or yield.
• Claims 5/13/21/34: the curve is a fair value curve.
• Claims 7/15: selection may be of a portion of the curve itself.
• Claims 23–26 (and 36–39): selection of a first symbol (bid) or a second symbol (offer), with the dialog box showing corresponding bid/offer info.
• Claims 27–28 (and 40–41): selection of both a bid symbol and an offer symbol, with the dialog box showing both.
• Claim 8/16/29/42: dialog box includes information relating to the selected graph portion.

Specification highlights (useful for context)

• Curves are updated in real time from the eSpeed™ trading platform or an external ticker.
• Zooming: the first axis can be divided into fixed-width "vertical columns" (e.g., one- or two-year spans), or a user can enter a start/end range in an overlay (FIG. 4).
• FIG. 5–7 show a spread graph (US Agencies vs. US Treasuries) with diamonds = current bids and squares = current offers, plus a "fair value" curve; hovering produces an information overlay (FIG. 6), and selecting a bid/offer/curve pre-fills a trading dialog box (FIG. 7).
• FIG. 8 shows single-axis "singularity" graphs; FIG. 9–10 show a curve-comparison view with a combined buy-and-sell dialog box for spread/arbitrage trades (FIG. 10).

Litigation and 2026 Docket Check

What I found (and did not find):

• PTAB: CBM2016-00038, Interactive Brokers LLC; CQG, Inc.; CQG, LLC (f/k/a CQGT, LLC); NinjaTrader Group, LLC; TradeStation Group, Inc.; TradeStation Securities, Inc.; and TradeStation Technologies, Inc. v. Chart Trading Development, LLC, filed 2016-02-19, instituted 2016-08-23, Final Written Decision 2017-08-18. Claims 1–42 were held patent-ineligible under § 101 and obvious under § 103 over Friesen (WO 01/16852), Jones (US 2002/0120551), and Kirwin (WO 01/46841). A parallel CBM2016-00039 covered US 8,380,611.
• District court: four Texas Eastern District Court case filings in 2015 (6:15-cv-01133, -01134, -01135, -01136).
• Federal Circuit: Notice of Appeal filed 2017-10-20. The Federal Circuit affirmed under Rule 36 on 2017-12-18 (per PTAB docket entry; some records say "entered 12/17/18"); CAFC mandate issued 2019-04-22. See the IPWatchdog commentary noting the Rule 36 summary affirmance.
• Ownership chain: eSpeed, Inc. (original, 2002) → BGC Partners, Inc. (merger, 2015-10-08) → Chart Trading Development, LLC (assignment executed 2015-11-23, recorded 2015-11-24, USPTO Reel/Frame 37133/731).

On CAFC 2026 dockets specifically: My searches returned no 2026 Federal Circuit docket activity involving 7,113,190 — no new appeal, mandamus, or remanded proceeding. The only Federal Circuit involvement I can substantiate is the 2017 notice of appeal and the 2018 Rule 36 affirmance / 2019 mandate. I should flag this as a limitation of my search rather than a positive finding of "no activity": I do not have direct authenticated access to the Federal Circuit's live CM/ECF docket or to PACER, so I cannot rule out a very recent (2026) filing that is not yet indexed by general web search. The patent itself is expired as of 2022-11-27, which makes fresh 2026 appellate activity unlikely absent a collateral challenge (e.g., to a still-live continuation such as US 10,789,645), but I cannot confirm this with certainty.

Uncertainty Flags

• Assignee: Google Patents and the assignment records list Chart Trading Development, LLC as current owner. I found no 2026 record changing this, but assignment records can lag.
• "Attorney of record / Fish & Neave": sourced from a third-party firm-profile listing, not an authoritative USPTO record in my results.
• Rule 36 affirmance date: sources differ between 2017-12-18 and "entered 12/17/18" (the latter appears to be a typo for 12/17/2018 or 12/18/2017). I have reported both rather than resolving it.
• Claim text for the granted patent is taken from the authoritative full text supplied for US 7,113,190 B2, which differs materially from the pre-grant publication; the version above is the granted version.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7113190. Let me run several searches.

Let me gather more detail on the district court cases and outcomes.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 7,113,190

Short answer: Yes — there is known litigation and it is well documented. The '190 patent (owned at the relevant time by Chart Trading Development, LLC, an affiliate/NPE associated with BGC Partners) was asserted in a four-case district court campaign in the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, filed December 2015, and was simultaneously challenged in a Covered Business Method (CBM) review at the PTAB that invalidated all claims. Below are the specifics, with confidence notes where I could not fully verify.

1. District Court Litigation — E.D. Tex., Tyler Division (consolidated)

Defendant groups by case number (as reflected in CTD's P.R. 3-1 infringement contentions and the consolidated briefing):

• 6:15-cv-01136 (lead): TradeStation Group, Inc.; TradeStation Securities, Inc.; TradeStation Technologies, Inc.; plus Interactive Brokers, LLC; Gar Wood Securities, LLC; Cobra Trading, Inc.
• 6:15-cv-01134: NinjaTrader Group, LLC; NinjaTrader, LLC; FXCM Global Services, LLC; Apex Investing Institute LLC; Crossland LLC; Interactive Brokers, LLC; Rosenthal Collins Group, LLC; Robbins Futures Inc.; Progressive Trading Group Ltd.; MB Trading Futures, Inc.; Wedbush Futures.
• 6:15-cv-01133: CQG, Inc.; CQGT, LLC; TradePro Futures, Inc.; Trade FX Futures; Trade Futures 4 Less; Redcape LLC; E D & F Man Capital Markets Inc.; R.J. O'Brien & Associates LLC; CV Futures, LLC; Crossland LLC; The Price Futures Group, Inc.; Dorman Trading Company, Inc.; Dorman Trading, L.L.C.
• 6:15-cv-01135: I could not confirm the specific defendant list for this case number from the sources retrieved. Treat as unverified.

In total, CTD asserted the five patents against roughly 32 defendants across the four cases.

Outcome / status: On March 29, 2016, the court granted a temporary stay of all four actions (6:15-cv-1133 through -1136) pending the PTAB's decisions on institution of the five CBM petitions. The court denied defendants' alternative Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss without prejudice. The cases were subsequently closed — consistent with the PTAB's invalidation of all claims of the '190 patent (see below). Docket aggregators list 6:15-cv-01136 as Status: Closed.

Source grounding:

• Consolidation/stay order: Chart Trading Development, LLC v. TradeStation Group, Inc., No. 6:15-cv-01136, D.I. 109 (E.D. Tex. Mar. 29, 2016) — https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/texas/txedce/6:2015cv01136/[164848/109](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=164848-0109)/
• Casetext recap of consolidation and CBM petitions: http://g.casetext.com/case/chart-trading-dev-llc-v-tradestation-grp-inc

2. PTAB — Covered Business Method Review

Companion CBM patents from same campaign: CBM2016-00039 ('611 patent), CBM2016-00046 ('416), -00047 ('626), -00048 ('435).

Sources:

• RPX Insight: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/ptab/4592-interactive-brokers-v-chart-trading-development-llc-cbm-of-190
• Unified Patents PTAB case list: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/caselist?petitioners=CQG+Inc
• Oral hearing transcript (consolidated CBM2016-00038/-00039): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/CBM2016-00038/Covered_Business_Method_Patent_Review_of_U.S._Pat._7113190/docs/07-20-2017-Board/Hearing_Transcript-45-Record_of_Oral_Hearing.pdf

3. Federal Circuit Appeal

Note: The substantively contested APA/due-process arguments concerned the companion '611 patent proceeding; the Rule 36 affirmance resolved the appeal without a written opinion. See IPWatchdog commentary: https://ipwatchdog.com/2018/12/18/due-process-apa-violations-ptab-rule-36ed-cafc/

CourtListener judgment: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[4573933](/patent/4573933)/chart-trading-development-llc-v-interactive-brokers-llc/

Summary of Known Litigation

1. Chart Trading Development, LLC v. TradeStation Group, Inc., et al. — E.D. Tex. Nos. 6:15-cv-01133 / -01134 / -01135 / -01136 (lead), filed 12/03/2015, consolidated 02/04/2016. Stayed 03/29/2016 pending PTAB. Now closed.
2. Interactive Brokers LLC, et al. v. Chart Trading Development, LLC — PTAB CBM2016-00038, filed 02/19/2016, FWD 08/18/2017 → all claims of the '190 patent held unpatentable.
3. Chart Trading Development, LLC v. Interactive Brokers LLC, et al. — Fed. Cir. Nos. 2018-1102, 2018-1104, decided 12/17/2018 → affirmed (Rule 36).

Caveats and confidence notes

• Verified with reasonable confidence: the four E.D. Tex. case numbers, plaintiff, filing date, consolidation, the stay order, the CBM number and outcome, and the Federal Circuit appeal numbers/outcome.
• Not fully verified: the exact complete defendant roster for 6:15-cv-01135 — I did not confirm it, and you should not rely on any particular defendant list for that case number without checking the docket directly.
• Interpretation note: The '190 patent's own Google Patents page lists only the four E.D. Tex. case URLs (6:15-cv-01133, -01134, -01135, -01136) and the PTAB CBM2016-00038, which corroborates the above. I did not independently confirm any additional district court suits asserting the '190 patent beyond this consolidated Texas campaign; if others exist, they did not surface in my searches.
• Related but distinct: Chart Trading Development also asserted sibling patents from the same family (e.g., '611, '416, '626, '435) in the same campaign. Those are different patent numbers and are outside the scope of this request for U.S. 7,113,190.
• The '190 patent expired (anticipated) November 27, 2022 per the patent record, and its current assignee of record is Chart Trading Development LLC (originally eSpeed, Inc.; later BGC Partners, Inc. → Chart Trading Development, LLC).

If you need PACER-verified docket entries (e.g., the exact dismissal order closing the Texas cases), that requires a PACER account or a paid docket service; my results reflect public aggregators (Justia, Casetext, UniCourt, Docket Alarm, RPX, Unified Patents Portal, CourtListener).

I'll research the PTAB proceedings for US 7,113,190 — the patent page flags a CBM, so I need to verify details.

I've found the key proceeding. Let me pull the Final Written Decision details, grounds, and appeal record.

Let me get the Final Written Decision document itself for claim-level granularity and panel reasoning.

PTAB Proceedings — US 7,113,190 (Heaton / Chart Trading Development, LLC)

Important reconciliation up front: the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block says the ODP AIA trial feed returns nothing. That is technically correct but misleading here — the challenge to this patent was a Covered Business Method (CBM) review, an AIA § 18 transitional proceeding that sits alongside IPR/PGR but often does not surface in an "AIA trial" (IPR/PGR) endpoint. The Google Patents record for US 7,113,190 itself flags CBM2016-00038 with a Final Written Decision. So the accurate answer is not "no PTAB activity" — it is "one CBM, fully litigated, claims wiped out, affirmed on appeal."

Proceedings overview

One AIA-family proceeding on file for the '190 patent: CBM2016-00038 — status: claims invalidated (all 42 claims held unpatentable; affirmed by the Federal Circuit). Breakdown: 1 total · 0 active · 1 claims-invalidated · 0 settled · 0 institution denied. Bottom line for a defendant: this patent is dead — every claim 1–42 was canceled by the Board and the affirmance is final. Any demand letter citing US 7,113,190 is baseless; the patent also reached its anticipated term expiry on 2022-11-27. The strategic concern shifts entirely to the later continuations in the same family (see Strategic summary).

Note: the "Unified Patents" attribution on the Google Patents page is the data source for the PTAB link, not the petitioner. The real petitioners were the defendant group (Interactive Brokers, CQG, NinjaTrader, TradeStation, et al.).

CBM2016-00038 — Interactive Brokers LLC, IBG LLC, IBFX, Inc., CQG, Inc., CQG, LLC (f/k/a CQGT, LLC), NinjaTrader Group, LLC, NinjaTrader, LLC, TradeStation Group, Inc., TradeStation Securities, Inc., and TradeStation Technologies, Inc. v. Chart Trading Development, LLC

• Type: Covered Business Method review (AIA § 18; Post-Grant Review-style procedure)
• Filed: 2016-02-19
• Status: Final Written Decision (verbatim from structured sources: "Final Written Decision"; RPX outcome tag: "All Claims Unpatentable"). Plain English: trial ran to judgment, patent owner lost on every claim, appeal affirmed.
• Judge panel: Administrative Patent Judges Brian J. McNamara, Frances L. Ippolito, and Kevin W. Cherry
• Petition grounds:
  • § 101 — claims 1–42 recite patent-ineligible subject matter (abstract idea).
  • § 103 — claims 1–42 obvious over PCT Publication WO 01/16852 (Friesen et al.), U.S. Patent Application Publication 2002/0120551 (Jones, III), and PCT Publication WO 01/46841 (Kirwin et al.).
  • Ground record (from the oral hearing, 2017-05-11): "Both cases have a 101 ground on which trial was instituted and a 103 ground on which trial was instituted. The 103 grounds are similarly based on the Friesen, Jones, and Kirwin references." (The two cases heard together were -038 on the '190 patent and -039 on the '611 continuation.)
• Institution decision: Instituted 2016-08-23 (Paper 14). The Board instituted on both the § 101 and § 103 grounds. I have the institution date confirmed; I do not have the verbatim institution-decision reasoning text in front of me, so I won't paraphrase it as if quoted.
• Final Written Decision: 2017-08-18 (Paper 46). Verdict at claim level:
  • Claims 1–42 — ALL unpatentable. Both independent claim sets (claims 1 and 9 on the graph-plus-curve embodiments; claims 17 and 30 on the bid/offer-symbol embodiments) fell, and every dependent claim with them.
  • No claim was held patentable. There is no surviving claim of the '190 patent.
  • Verbatim grounding for the claim-level and ground-level disposition — Patent Owner's own Notice of Appeal states the appeal is from the Board's "determination of unpatentability that claims 1-42 of the '190 patent recite patent-ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101" and its "determination of unpatentability that claims 1-42 of the '190 patent are rendered obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103 by … Friesen …, … Jones …, and … Kirwin." I was not able to pull the FWD opinion text itself within this session, so I am not quoting the panel's § 101/§ 103 rationale verbatim — treat any specific reasoning language as unverified until you read Paper 46 directly.
• Settlement / termination: None. No adverse-judgment or joint-motion termination; the case was decided on the merits and appealed.
• Appeal: Yes.
  • Patent Owner (Chart Trading Development) filed its Notice of Appeal on 2017-10-20 (Paper 47).
  • Federal Circuit Nos. 2018-1102 and 2018-1104, consolidated (appeals from CBM2016-00038 and CBM2016-00039). Issues on appeal: the Board's claim construction, the decision to institute CBM review (whether the '190 patent is CBM-eligible), and the § 101 and § 103 unpatentability holdings on claims 1–42.
  • Disposition: AFFIRMED. Judgment entered 2018-12-17, per curiam (Newman, Plager, and Moore, Circuit Judges) under Fed. Cir. R. 36 (summary affirmance, no opinion — nonprecedential). CourtListener: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[4573933](/patent/4573933)/chart-trading-development-llc-v-interactive-brokers-llc/
  • Mandate issued 2019-01-23 (signed by Clerk Peter R. Marksteiner); recorded at the PTAB on 2019-04-22 (Paper 50). Docket Alarm document: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/CBM2016-00038/Covered_Business_Method_Patent_Review_of_U.S._Pat._7113190/docs/04-22-2019-Board/Court_Mandate-50-CAFC_Mandate.pdf
  • Because the affirmance was a Rule 36 summary order, there is no precedential appellate reasoning and no CAFC opinion text to quote beyond "AFFIRMED."
• Defensive value: Decisive for the '190 patent. All 42 claims were canceled at the Board and the cancellation is final after the 2019 mandate. A defendant hit with an infringement assertion on US 7,113,190 today has a cancellation order plus a Federal Circuit affirmance to put in front of opposing counsel or the court — the assertion is not merely weak, it fails at the threshold because there are no live claims to infringe.

Strategic summary

Which claims are canceled vs. sustained vs. untested. All 42 claims of US 7,113,190 (claims 1–42) were challenged and all 42 were canceled — none sustained, none untested. The '190 patent is a paper weight: as of the 2019 mandate the claims stand canceled, and the patent independently reached its anticipated expiration on 2022-11-27 (status: Expired – Lifetime). A defendant should treat any '190-based demand as a bad-faith or error-ridden collection attempt, and should demand (and be ready to produce) Paper 46 (2017-08-18 FWD) and the CAFC judgment (2018-12-17).

Estoppel landscape. CBM post-judgment estoppel flows through AIA § 18(a)(1)(D), which applies 35 U.S.C. § 325(e): the -038 petitioners (Interactive Brokers/IBG, CQG, NinjaTrader, TradeStation, et al.) and their privies/RPIs are estopped from requesting or maintaining Office proceedings, and from asserting in district court, any ground they raised or reasonably could have raised. That estoppel is now academic for the '190 patent because there are no claims left to litigate. For a new defendant, the prior-art trio the petitioners used — Friesen (WO 01/16852), Jones (US 2002/0120551), and Kirwin (WO 01/46841) — is public and remains fully available in any invalidity defense against a related, still-live family member; the Board's -038 work product is a ready-made roadmap, and the § 101 abstract-idea holding is a strong template because it does not depend on the art.

Pattern signals. This was a coordinated, multi-front NPE defense. One petition group filed two CBMs on 2016-02-19 (-038 on the '190, -039 on the '611) and three more on 2016-03-18 (-046, -047, -048) against the remaining patents-in-suit, alongside a motion to stay in the consolidated E.D. Tex. action. The asserted campaign was four Texas Eastern District Court cases filed in 2015 (6:15-cv-01133, -01134, -01135, -01136) against the trading-platform defendants, with -01135 as the lead. The patent owner, Chart Trading Development, LLC (an NPE that acquired the eSpeed/BGC Partners portfolio on 2015-11-24), litigated aggressively to the Federal Circuit — appealing both -038 and -039 together, and it lost both. No defensive aggregator filed here (Unified Patents appears only as a data source on the Google Patents page). Consistent with this, the same family's '611 continuation was independently held all-claims-unpatentable in CBM2016-00039 and the amended claims fell too — the CAFC briefing in that companion appeal (Rule 36'd alongside -038) shows the patent owner arguing PTAB due-process/APA error on the § 101/§ 103 burden, and getting no substantive appellate relief.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant and a demand letter, complaint, or licensing package cites US 7,113,190: the patent has no live claims. Cite the FWD, CBM2016-00038, Paper 46 (2017-08-18), which canceled claims 1–42, and the Federal Circuit judgment in Nos. 2018-1102/-1104 (2018-12-17), AFFIRMED under Fed. Cir. R. 36, with the mandate (2019-01-23). Demand withdrawal and consider a Rule 11 / § 285 posture if the assertion is pressed.
• If the assertion is instead on a continuation in this family (e.g., US 8,380,611; US 9,875,507; US 10,789,645; or the later filings claiming the 2002-11-27 priority), do not assume the '190 invalidation auto-kills them. The '611 was separately invalidated in CBM2016-00039 (affirmed), but the later continuations' PTAB status was not verified in this session — confirm before relying on it. The Friesen/Jones/Kirwin combination and the Board's § 101 analysis are your starting points.
• No active PTAB proceedings exist, so there are no institution/PO/FWD deadlines to track on the '190 patent; the file is closed. The relevant "clock" is instead any live district-court or licensing campaign on the surviving family members (or any new IPR/PGR those attract), which you should monitor via PTAB E2E / the ODP API.
• Caveats I could not close with the available steps: (1) I did not retrieve the verbatim text of the institution decision (Paper 14, 2016-08-23) or the FWD (Paper 46, 2017-08-18), so the panel's precise § 101/§ 103 reasoning is paraphrased from the grounds record and Patent Owner's Notice of Appeal, not quoted from the decisions; (2) I have no confirmation of a contingent motion to amend the '190 claims (the "amended claims" discussion in the consolidated appeal appears to concern the '611 patent); (3) no IPR, PGR, or additional CBM on the '190 patent was found — the single CBM2016-00038 is the only proceeding of record.

I'll research the assignment record for US 7,113,190 using the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-reference sources.

I have key data. Let me dig into the specific assignment records, reels/frames, and correspondents.

Let me find the correspondent of record and the earlier eSpeed/BGC recordings.

Assignment & Ownership Chain — US 7,113,190 B2

Scope note: I retrieved assignment data from the Google Patents legal-events pane (authoritative full text supplied), the PlainSite mirror of the USPTO Assignment Center record, and litigation/PTAB filings. I was able to confirm one reel/frame with certainty (37133/731). For the two earlier recordings I could not retrieve reel/frame or correspondent values before my tool budget was exhausted — those cells are marked as unverified rather than filled by inference. Verify all entries at the USPTO Assignment Center / Assignments on the Web.

Inventors

Pattern note: There is no unusual multi-inventor departure pattern here — a single inventor assigning to his employer at filing is the ordinary employment-assignment posture. Unlike a portfolio fire-sale tell (all inventors exiting the assignee within 12 months of filing), Heaton's name does not reappear as an assignor on any later recording for this family; the 2015 transfers are corporate, not inventor-driven.

Original assignee

eSpeed, Inc. — the entity named on the issued patent (confirmed by the USPTO.report grant record: "currently assigned to eSpeed, Inc.").

• Product embodying the claims: Yes. eSpeed operated an electronic fixed-income/trading platform (the "eSpeed™ trading platform" expressly referenced in the specification at col. describing real-time curve updates). This is an operating-company-origin patent, not a paper filing.
• Primary line of business: Electronic inter-dealer brokerage / electronic trading technology for U.S. Treasuries and fixed income. eSpeed was a publicly traded company (Nasdaq: ESPD), spun out of Cantor Fitzgerald.
• Current status: Acquired / absorbed. eSpeed, Inc. was acquired by BGC Partners, Inc. and the transfer is reflected in the USPTO record as a MERGER recorded 2015-10-08 (assignor eSpeed, Inc. → assignee BGC Partners, Inc.). BGC Partners is an operating inter-dealer broker. There is no evidence eSpeed entered bankruptcy — the "bankruptcy fire-sale" scenario does not apply.

Assignment timeline

Important: The Assignment Center does have records for this patent, so I proceed past this section. However, I could confirm reel/frame for only the third link; the first two are reconstructed from the Google Patents legal-events pane, which does not display reel/frame.

• 2002-11-27 (executed) / recorded 2002-11-27 — Reel/Frame NOT RETRIEVED

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest (employment assignment)
  • Assignor: Heaton, Timothy H.
  • Assignee: eSpeed, Inc.
  • Correspondent: Not captured in retrieved records.
  • Context: Original employer assignment at filing; standard in-house/outside-counsel recording.

• 2015-10-08 (executed/recorded per Google Patents; date shown is the assignment event date) — Reel/Frame NOT RETRIEVED

  • Conveyance: MERGER
  • Assignor: eSpeed, Inc.
  • Assignee: BGC Partners, Inc.
  • Correspondent: Not captured.
  • Context: Internal corporate reorganization — eSpeed absorbed into its acquirer BGC Partners. Note: the economic merger predated this recording; the 2015-10-08 date is the recorded legal event.

• 2015-11-23 (executed) / recorded 2015-11-24 — Reel 37133 / Frame 731

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: BGC Partners, Inc.
  • Assignee: Chart Trading Development, LLC, 100 East Ferguson, Suite 609, Tyler, TX 75702
  • Correspondent: Not populated in the retrieved record. The PlainSite rendering of 37133/731 carries a "Correspondent" column header but returned no attorney/firm value for this entry. I cannot confirm the recording correspondent — do not treat the counsel names below as the recording attorney. For the record, the litigation and PTAB counsel (distinct from the recording correspondent) were:
    • PTAB counsel for Chart Trading Development: Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP — Timothy P. McAnulty, James R. Barney.
    • EDTX litigation counsel: Eric H. Findlay, Findlay Craft, P.C., Tyler, TX.
  • Context: Transfer-to-asserter. This single assignment conveyed the entire Heaton/eSpeed family — applications 10/306,996 (→'190), 11/465,060 (→'997), 12/756,489 (→'611), and 13/768,466 (→'507) — to an LLC nine days before it sued four brokerages.

No further post-2015 recordings appear in the Google Patents legal-events pane through the anticipated expiration (2022-11-27), and the patent is now Expired – Lifetime.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7113190
    2002 : Filed by eSpeed Inc
    2006 : Patent issued to eSpeed
    2015 : eSpeed merged into BGC Partners
         : Sold to Chart Trading Development LLC
         : Four EDTX suits filed against brokers
    2016 : CBM review sought by rival brokers
    2017 : PTAB invalidates all 42 claims
    2022 : Patent reaches end of term

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT. Reel 37133/731 (executed 2015-11-23 / recorded 2015-11-24) moves the patent from BGC Partners, Inc., an operating inter-dealer broker, to Chart Trading Development, LLC, a Tyler, Texas LLC at a small-suite address (100 East Ferguson, Suite 609) that filed four EDTX suits ten days later. Concrete evidence of a licensing/assertion-only vehicle: no product is identified anywhere in the CTD filings; defendant briefs and the EDTX court record describe CTD as a "non-practicing entity" (see the stay opinion in Chart Trading Development, LLC v. TradeStation Group, Inc., No. 6:15-cv-01136). Caveat: the "LLC + Tyler address" framing alone would not be a finding — it is the no-product + immediate-assertion + sale-by-operating-parent combination that carries it.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (qualified). Chart Trading Development, LLC is not on the classic named lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg). It is, however, surfaced through Unified Patents' PTAB portal for CBM2016-00038, and it is a serial single-patent-holder plaintiff (four coordinated EDTX complaints filed the same day, 2015-12-03). I did not locate an RPX asserter-directory entry naming CTD.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / not established. I could not retrieve the correspondent fields for any of the three recordings. This signal can neither be confirmed nor ruled out from my data. This is the single highest-value item to verify manually, because if the same attorney/firm appears on both the 2015-10-08 BGC merger recording and Reel 37133/731, the chain becomes far more diagnostic. (The Finnegan and Findlay names above are litigation/PTAB counsel, not recording correspondents — do not conflate them.)

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT. Two recorded transfers inside ~6 weeks: merger to BGC on 2015-10-08, then assignment to Chart Trading Development on 2015-11-23/24 (Reel 37133/731). Because an LLC (not a holding company with a continuing product line) is the terminus, this reads as serial repositioning for assertion rather than ordinary internal housekeeping.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT (strongest signal). The assignment was executed 2015-11-23 and recorded 2015-11-24 (Reel 37133/731); the first four infringement complaints were filed 2015-12-03 — roughly 9–10 days later. This is about as tight a timing as the record permits and is the textbook setup to clean title and fix venue before assertion.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No bankruptcy proceeding for eSpeed, Inc. or BGC Partners appears; eSpeed's exit from the chain was a merger (Reel event 2015-10-08), not an insolvency sale.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR. The facts are consistent with BGC monetizing a non-core portfolio through an NPE, but there is no evidence (SEC filing, revenue-share, or coordinated-litigation proof) that BGC is directing or profiting from CTD's assertions. Not a supported finding.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. Unified Patents' involvement here is as a challenger (CBM2016-00038 against the patent), not as acquirer. Neutralizing outcome, however: PTAB invalidated all claims 1–42 (Final Written Decision 2017-08-18, § 101 and § 103), and the Federal Circuit affirmed under Rule 36 in Dec 2017/2018 — so the asset was ultimately neutralized, though by adjudication, not acquisition.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two independent strong signals are present and are grounded in the same recorded event: a shell-entity transfer from operating broker BGC Partners to the no-product LLC Chart Trading Development (Reel 37133/731, executed 2015-11-23 / recorded 2015-11-24), immediately followed by a pre-litigation transfer in which four EDTX infringement suits were filed ten days later on 2015-12-03, with the acquiring entity expressly treated as a non-practicing entity in the court record. The cascading eSpeed→BGC→CTD sequence within ~6 weeks (2015-10-08 to 2015-11-24) reinforces the pattern.

Confidence caveat: the third signal the task expects — repeat recording correspondent — is unverified because the correspondent fields were not recoverable in my results. If manual review of Reel 37133/731 and the 2015-10-08 merger entry shows the same recording attorney across both, that upgrades this from "high confidence" to essentially conclusive; if it shows different correspondents with no NPE history, the verdict stands on signals 1, 4, and 5 but loses its strongest corroborating thread.

I'll verify the cited prior-art references for US 7,113,190 against authoritative sources before mapping them to claims.

Now let me verify the trading-specific references, which are the most relevant art.

Prior Art Analysis — US 7,113,190 B2

Scope note: I searched for and analyzed only US 7,113,190 (not similar numbers). The prior art below is the complete set of 14 patent citations and 5 non-patent citations listed on the face of US 7,113,190 B2, per the authoritative full text. I build on (and do not repeat) the bibliographic/claims summary generated earlier; where relevant I cross-reference it.

Important framing before the per-reference analysis

Two threshold points govern § 102 mapping here:

1. Critical date. US 7,113,190 has a filing date of 2002‑11‑27 and no earlier priority claim (per the patent text and the earlier summary). Pre‑AIA § 102 therefore applies. A reference is § 102 prior art only if it was patented/published before 2002‑11‑27 (§ 102(a)/(b)), or is a US patent/application filed before that date but published later (§ 102(e)), or is a § 102(a) "known or used" item.

2. The "interactive trading dialog box" limitation. Each independent claim (1, 9, 17, 30) requires displaying an interactive trading dialog box "configured to receive an instruction … comprising a selection of at least one of a bid, offer, hit and lift." As the earlier summary noted, this language was added during prosecution relative to pre-grant publication US 2004/0100467 A1 (which recited only "displaying a trading dialog box").

Consequence: None of the 14 cited references discloses this limitation in a single reference. On its face, therefore, no cited reference cleanly anticipates claims 1, 9, 17, or 30 under § 102; they function as § 103 combination art and as § 102 art against narrower dependent claims. This is consistent with the CBM2016‑00038 Final Written Decision summarized earlier, which invalidated the claims under § 103 (obviousness over Friesen, Jones, and Kirwin) and § 101 — not under § 102 anticipation. I flag this explicitly rather than over-claiming anticipation.

A. The 14 patent citations (face of the patent)

B. Per-reference analysis and § 102 claim mapping

1. US 5,325,481 A — Hewlett‑Packard (Hunt)

• Description (verified): Iconic programming system where a "user panel" is created from selected icons; a "show‑on‑execute" user panel pops up on the display when the user clicks an icon. Confirmed via the EP 0508633 family and everypatent.com claim text ("when processing said iconic network, displaying said user panel only if said show-on-execute flag is set…").
• Relevance: Non‑analogous field (instrument/test programming, not securities). Relevant only to the generic "in response to a user selection, a panel/dialog box is displayed" mechanic.
• Potential § 102 mapping: Could arguably anticipate the display-a-box-in-response-to-selection step of claims 1/9/17/30 only if one ignored the trading/dialog-box content limitation — it does not. Realistically § 103 art for the claim 8/16/29/42 ("dialog box includes information") concept. No clean anticipation.

2. US 5,339,392 A — Risberg & Skeen

• Description (verified): User‑definable "active document" showing real‑time changeable data, including a claim reciting "means for displaying any user selected item of real time data as a graph … plotted against any other variable such as time," plus event triggers/scripts on active objects; menus/pop‑ups and network data subscription.
• Relevance: Strong generic support for a real‑time, user‑configurable graphic display of market data and for pop‑up interaction — the same concepts the '190 specification uses (real‑time curves, information overlays).
• Potential § 102 mapping: Potentially anticipatory of the graph‑display element of claims 1 and 9 and the "information overlay/dialog" ideas behind claims 8/16/29/42, and § 103 art against claims 5/13/21/34 (graph of plotted values). But it discloses no bid/offer/hit/lift trade instruction → does not anticipate any independent claim.

3. US 5,809,483 A — Broka et al. (FIPS)

• Description (verified): On‑line bond‑trading system (Fixed Income Pricing System) with workstations, GUI, quote management (bids/asks), trade reporting, and "Minder" monitoring groups; the front page and FIPS description were confirmed (Appl. 970,435, filed 1997‑11‑14, a continuation of the 1994 priority).
• Relevance: The closest subject‑matter match among the US patents for bond trading with bids/offers and a trader GUI. In the CBM/related BPAI proceedings, Broka was expressly analyzed for "market makers … arbitrageurs … simultaneous buying and selling of securities" (per the Chart Trading exhibit reproduced in search results).
• Potential § 102 mapping: § 103 art for the bid/offer content underlying claims 17, 23–26, 30, 36–39. Does not disclose bid/offer symbols plotted on a graph or a select‑the‑graph → dialog box flow → no anticipation of 1/9/17/30.

4. US 5,689,651 A — Lozman

• Description (verified): Real‑time graphic and numeric indicators of market data in a "hub‑and‑spoke" layout; user‑selected primary/secondary symbols; periodically updated; emphasis on overcoming "straight column/row" alphanumeric displays with market‑trend graphics.
• Relevance: Directly addresses the '190 problem statement (traders get patterns better from graphics than tables). Strong art against the "graph with symbols representing market data" concept.
• Potential § 102 mapping: § 103 art for claims 17, 20–21, 23–28, 30, 34–41 (graphic bid/offer/market‑indicator display, real‑time update). No trading dialog box and no curve‑selection → no anticipation of the independents.

5. US 6,473,744 B1 — MHC Investment Company

• Description: "Apparatus and method for trading electric energy" (per the patent text). I was unable to independently re‑verify the full disclosure within my search budget — flagging this as a lower‑confidence entry.
• Relevance: Broad trading‑system art (order entry against a market).
• Potential § 102 mapping: At most § 103 art touching the generic trade‑entry steps of claims 1/9/17/30. No meaningful anticipation.

6. US 6,014,643 A — Minton

• Description (verified): Interactive securities trading over a public network; buyers/sellers post offers and acceptances; FIG. 6 buy screen, FIG. 7 sell screen, FIG. 10/11 market‑creation screens — i.e., dedicated order‑entry dialog screens. Also litigated: Minton v. NASD (Fed. Cir. 2003), where the patent was invalidated on the § 102(b) on‑sale bar.
• Relevance: The Minton buy/sell order‑entry screens are the closest cited art to the "interactive trading dialog box configured to receive a bid/offer instruction."
• Potential § 102 mapping: § 103 art for the dialog‑box/order‑entry element of claims 1, 9, 17, 30, and potentially § 102(b) art for the trading‑screen idea generally. But Minton's screens are not invoked by selecting a portion of a graph → cannot anticipate any independent claim.

7. US 6,326,092 B1 — Alps Electric

• Description (verified via title): "Magnetoresistance device and production method thereof" — a thin‑film magnetic sensor patent. Completely non‑analogous to electronic trading.
• Potential § 102 mapping: None. This citation appears to be an IDS/formality artifact with no bearing on any claim of the '190 patent.

8. US 2002/0067358 A1 — Casari

• Description: "Data analysis software" (published 2002‑06‑06; prior to the 2002‑11‑27 critical date).
• Relevance: Generic data‑analysis/visualization; no trading.
• Potential § 102 mapping: § 103 art, at most, against generic graph/interaction features of claims 1/9/17/30 (e.g., claims 6/14/22/35, "portion of graph within confines of axes"). No anticipation.

9. WO 01/75733 A1 — E‑Xchange Advantage, Inc.

• Description: "A system and method for displaying market information" (published 2001‑10‑11 — before the critical date, so it is § 102(a)/(b) art).
• Relevance: On its title and purpose, this is the most on‑point patent‑citation for the graphical display of market information limitation.
• Potential § 102 mapping: § 103 art for claims 1, 9, 17, 30 (market‑information display) and the "market‑spread/yardstick" context of claims 5/13/21/34. Whether it anticipates depends on whether it discloses the selection→dialog‑box trading interaction; based on the available record it does not → no clean § 102 anticipation of the independents.

10. WO 01/82149 A2 — Medeghini

• Description: "Method and system for insuring an investment in stocks and the like" (published 2001‑11‑01; § 102 art).
• Relevance: Investment/instrument art; secondary.
• Potential § 102 mapping: § 103 art only, peripheral to claims 3/11/19/32 (price axis) if it prices instruments. No anticipation.

11. US 2002/0063733 A1 — Franke

• Description (verified via listing): "Configurable interactive chart application" (published 2002‑05‑30; § 102(a) art). Note this is a configurable interactive chart — the same functional space as the '190 graph.
• Relevance: Strong § 103 art for the "interactive chart/graph … user selects a portion" element.
• Potential § 102 mapping: § 103 art for claims 1, 7, 9, 15, 17, 30 (interactive chart; selecting a part of the chart). No trading instruction → no anticipation of the independents.

12. US 2002/0120551 A1 — Clarkson Jones

• Description: "Visual‑kinesthetic interactive financial trading system" (published 2002‑08‑29; § 102(a) art).
• Relevance — most important single citation. This is the "Jones" reference that the CBM2016‑00038 Final Written Decision (per the earlier summary) relied on, in combination with Friesen and Kirwin, to invalidate claims 1–42 as obvious. It is both a face‑of‑patent citation and a proven validity‑defeating reference.
• Potential § 102 mapping: § 103 art (as actually found) against all claims; considered alone, § 102/§ 103 art against claims 1, 9, 17, 30 and their dependents dealing with interactive financial‑trading visuals.

13. US 6,906,717 B2 — Microsoft

• Description (verified via listing): "Multiple chart user interface" (filed 2001‑02‑27 → § 102(e) prior art as of its filing date; issued 2005‑06‑14, after the critical date).
• Relevance: Multiple‑chart display — maps to the '190 FIG. 8 multiple "singularity" graphs and FIG. 9 multi‑curve comparison.
• Potential § 102 mapping: § 102(e)/§ 103 art for claims 1 and 9 (displaying a graph) and the multi‑graph context of the specification. No trading dialog → no anticipation.

14. US 2003/0009411 A1 — Ram

• Description: "Interactive grid‑based graphical trading system for real time security trading" (filed 2001‑07‑03 → § 102(e) prior art; published 2003‑01‑09, after the critical date).
• Relevance: Highly relevant concept — a graphical, interactive, real‑time trading UI with order placement.
• Potential § 102 mapping: § 102(e)/§ 103 art for the order‑entry/graphical‑trading elements of claims 1, 9, 17, 30 and the bid/offer‑symbol dependents 23–28/36–41. Still not shown to disclose select‑a‑graph‑portion → pre‑filled dialog box → no clean anticipation.

C. The 5 non‑patent citations (NPL)

Description / relevance of the NPL: These are all non‑interactive price/index chart web pages (intraday charts, share‑price graphs, index quotes). They support only the display‑a‑financial‑chart concept.

§ 102 mapping: At most § 102(a)/(b) art against the bare "displaying a graph … of a financial instrument" recitation of claims 1/9/17/30 (and only reference #5 can clear the date bar as shown). They disclose no curve‑selection and no trading dialog box → they cannot anticipate any claim as a whole; they are, at best, adjunct § 103 art on the chart‑display element.

D. Bottom line — most relevant prior art

1. Most relevant face‑of‑patent citation: US 2002/0120551 A1 (Clarkson Jones). It is the only cited reference that the CBM panel actually used to invalidate all 42 claims (as part of the Friesen + Jones + Kirwin obviousness combination documented in the earlier summary).
2. Most relevant subject‑matter citations: US 5,689,651 (Lozman) and US 5,809,483 (Broka) for graphical market data / bid‑offer trading; US 6,014,643 (Minton) for order‑entry dialog screens; US 2003/0009411 (Ram) and US 2002/0063733 (Franke) for interactive graphical trading/charts (§ 102(e)/(a) art).
3. The references that actually defeated the patent are NOT all on its face. Per the earlier section, the CBM relied on Friesen (WO 01/16852) and Kirwin (WO 01/46841 / US 2002/0029180 A1) in addition to Jones — Friesen and Kirwin do not appear among the 14 "Citations" on the face of US 7,113,190. This is the single most important prior‑art finding: the decisive art was not cited by the examiner of record.
4. No § 102 anticipation of independent claims 1, 9, 17, or 30 can be substantiated from the cited references, because none discloses the "interactive trading dialog box … configured to receive an instruction … comprising a selection of at least one of a bid, offer, hit and lift" limitation. The invalidation was on § 103 and § 101 grounds.

E. Uncertainty flags

• US 6,473,744 (MHC Investment) — I could not re‑verify its disclosure text in this pass; its description/dates come from the patent's face, per the operating rule to report identifiers literally.
• US 6,326,092 (Alps Electric) is a magnetic‑sensor patent and there is no plausible § 102 link to any claim; I report it exactly as cited rather than assuming a transcription error.
• Publication dates after 2002‑11‑27 (US 2003/0009411, US 6,906,717's 2005 grant, all NPL printed 2003–2004 except the archived comdirect page) mean those items are prior art only via § 102(e) (US filings) or via proof of earlier public availability (NPL) — I did not independently authenticate the archive.org date for the comdirect page beyond the patent's own statement.
• The CBM/FWD characterization (Friesen, Jones, Kirwin; § 103 + § 101; no § 102 anticipation) is carried over from the previously generated summary, which I have treated as authoritative for cross‑reference.

If you want, I can next build an element‑by‑element claim chart mapping Lozman, Broka, Minton, Ram, Franke, and Jones against each limitation of claims 1 and 17, flagging where the "select graph portion → pre‑filled trading dialog box" element is (or is not) met.

I'll ground the obviousness analysis by confirming the content of the key prior-art references from the page's Prior Art section (especially the references the PTAB actually relied on in CBM2016-00038).

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,113,190 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note: This analysis is built on (a) the authoritative full text of US 7,113,190 B2 supplied in the source material, and (b) the prior-art references listed in the Prior Art section of the Google Patents page (Patent Citations (14), Non-Patent Citations (5), Cited By lists, Family Cites Families). I have separately confirmed the substance of the three references that the PTAB relied on in CBM2016-00038, because that ground is now the strongest and most authoritative obviousness record for this patent.

⚠️ Contradiction to flag: My earlier "Patent summary" section recorded the Federal Circuit affirmance ambiguously (as "2017-12-18" per one source, "entered 12/17/18" per another). The CourtListener judgment resolves this: Chart Trading Development, LLC v. Interactive Brokers LLC, Nos. 2018-1102, 2018-1104, judgment entered December 17, 2018 (per curiam: Newman, Plager, Moore) — AFFIRMED under Fed. Cir. R. 36. The "2017-12-18" figure was a typo. I also note, literally as found, that one third-party database (Unified Patents) lists this patent with a date of "2002-11-26," whereas the authoritative record and every other source give 2002-11-27. I have not auto-corrected it; the one-day discrepancy is unexplained in the sources retrieved.

1. The Governing Framework

Obviousness is judged under the Graham v. John Deere factors as elaborated by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007):

1. Scope and content of the prior art;
2. Differences between the prior art and the claims;
3. Level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art;
4. Secondary considerations (objective indicia).

Critically for this patent, a final written decision already holds every one of claims 1–42 unpatentable under § 103(a) over Friesen (WO 01/16852), Jones (US 2002/0120551), and Kirwin (WO 01/46841), and that holding was affirmed without opinion by the Federal Circuit. There is therefore no live dispute over whether the claims are obvious over that combination; the analysis below explains why it is obvious, and then develops independent, alternative § 103 grounds built solely from the references cited on the face of this patent.

2. Level of Ordinary Skill in the Art (PHOSITA)

The '190 patent straddles two disciplines: electronic trading system software and graphical user interface design. A reasonable PHOSITA at the 2002 priority date is a person with a bachelor's degree in computer science, electrical engineering, or finance (or equivalent work experience) and approximately two to four years of experience designing or trading on electronic trading platforms, including familiarity with bid/offer/hit/lift market conventions and with charting/GUI toolkits. This is a low skill level relative to the art, which cuts in favor of obviousness: nearly every limitation is a matter of ordinary GUI design judgment. (The PTAB record refers to Petitioners' expert, Prof. Bernard Donefer, whose "extensive experience in the technology and financial services industries" was offered on this point.)

3. Scope and Content of the Prior Art

3.1 References cited of record (from the page's Patent Citations (14))

3.2 Non-Patent Citations (5)

The examiner cited five public web pages, all captured 2003–2004 and one dated by archive.org to 2002-10-03 — i.e., before the '190 filing:

• Yahoo! Finance "Intraday Chart"
• Bloomberg "Intraday Chart"
• PSION Investor Relations Share Price & Graph
• TDG Share Price Graph
• UK Shares (comdirect), archived to Oct. 3, 2002

These are significant: they establish that the two-axis financial chart with a plotted price/yield curve was a ubiquitous, well-known graphical convention in the art well before 2002-11-27. That single fact disposes of the "graph ... includ[ing] a curve" limitation in claims 1/9, and it explains why the examiner cited them.

3.3 The PTAB ground references (not cited of record, but part of the prior-art landscape)

• WO 01/16852 (Friesen et al.), published March 2001 — "User interface for an electronic trading system" (Trading Technologies). As detailed in the national-phase U.S. patents claiming its priority (US 7,212,999 / 7,412,416), Friesen discloses: displaying all outstanding bids and offers as tokens/icons positioned at locations corresponding to the values of the orders, with token size reflecting quantity (bid token 320, offer token 324); a historical/contextual chart "displayed along a vertical axis of values and against a horizontal axis of time"; and, upon placing an order, a "Buy pop-up window 350" / "Sell pop-up window 354" that "allows the trader to modify the order information (value, quantity, expiration), cancel the order or submit the order." It also permits direct order submission by selecting a token with a pointing device.
• US 2002/0120551 A1 (Jones) — "Visual-kinesthetic interactive financial trading system." Jones expressly states the object of "allow[ing] trading to be carried out quickly and easily on the basis of the visually-presented information," discloses a screen with an ordinate 42 (price) and abscissa 44 (date), a plot of market movement, and instructs that "a trader has the ability to see stock prices ... plotted in graphical fashion ... and to touch the screen at a given point on the plot to generate a buy, sell or other transaction signal." Selecting a point produces an order summary sub-screen 50 presenting the order both textually and graphically, with preview/clear/execute controls (52/53).
• WO 01/46841 A2 (Kirwin et al.), published 2001-06-28 (PCT/US00/34958, priority US 60/171,442 filed 1999-12-22) — "Systems and methods for providing a trading interface." Kirwin's background expressly frames the problem the '190 patent purports to solve: traders using "typical trading systems are required to (1) click on an issue of choice, (2) click on a buy or sell button, and (3) use the keyboard to enter a price and size." Kirwin also states the market convention verbatim: "other traders may then respond to the bids and offers by submitting sell (or hit) or buy (or lift or take) commands." Its disclosure shows a market cell 100 displaying bid and offer prices and sizes, with clicking on bid/offer data triggering further action, and the related eSpeed-family disclosure states that "when a user clicks on a bid and/or offer, a dialog box may pop-up, thereby providing the user with multiple options."

4. Ground A — Friesen + Jones + Kirwin (the adjudicated ground)

This is the combination the PTAB instituted and upheld for all 42 claims, and the Federal Circuit affirmed.

4.1 Element-by-element mapping

Independent claim 1 (method, curve-based):

Independent claim 17 (method, bid/offer-symbol-based):

Claims 9 and 30 are the server-side apparatus counterparts and are met by the same disclosures (the references all disclose a central transaction server communicating bid/offer data to client terminals — expressly so in Friesen).

4.2 Motivation to combine (the KSR rationales)

1. Same field, same problem, same solution direction. All three references are directed to graphical user interfaces for electronic trading. Kirwin's background states the very problem the '190 patent recites in its own Background section — traders must perform a multi-step click/click/type sequence and travel the pointer across the screen, wasting time. The '190 specification admits the same problem ("these determinations can be difficult due to the overwhelming amount of information provided to the trader in the table") and admits the solution ("it would be desirable to provide ... an interactive graphical representation ... that allows a user to ... place a trade directly from the graphical representation"). An applicant's own statement of the problem and of the desired solution is powerful evidence of the predictable nature of the combination.
2. Combining known elements according to known methods to yield predictable results (KSR). Charting (Jones, Friesen, and the NPL) plus pop-up order-entry dialogs (Friesen's Buy/Sell windows; Kirwin's dialog box) are two well-known GUI idioms; overlaying one on the other is the paradigmatic predictable combination.
3. Simple substitution of one known element for another. Substituting a graph-anchored pop-up order ticket for the conventional side-panel order-entry form (the form Jones criticizes at FIG. 3) yields no more than the expected benefit: fewer steps, less pointer travel, fewer errors — precisely the benefit each reference independently seeks.
4. Use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way. Interactive charting had already been applied to financial data (Franke; the NPL; Jones). Applying it to the trading front-end was an obvious extension.
5. "Obvious to try" over a finite set of solutions. Faced with an "overwhelming amount of information" in tabular displays, the field had a small, identified set of options: (a) better tables, (b) charts, (c) charts with direct order entry. The references had already reduced the choice to option (c).
6. Design incentives / market demand. Kirwin is explicit that time-to-trade and error-avoidance are the drivers: "an increasing number of traders are in need of new systems and methods to enter trade commands in a quick, efficient, and accurate manner."
7. Common corporate lineage. Kirwin and the '190 patent share an eSpeed/CFPH origin, and Friesen is the Trading Technologies counterpart art. The references are not from remote fields; they are the direct competitive neighborhood.

4.3 Dependent-claim mapping

5. Ground B — Alternative combination from the page's own cited art

Even if Ground A were set aside, the examiner-cited references independently support § 103. Representative combination:

Lozman (US 5,689,651) + Minton (US 6,014,643) or Broka (US 5,809,483) + Franke (US 2002/0063733) + Jones (US 2002/0120551) or Ram (US 2003/0009411).

• Lozman — displaying financial information (including graphical presentation); supplies the "graph ... of a financial instrument" element.
• Minton — an interactive securities trading system (bid/offer and order entry); Broka — online bond trading with spread/pricing concepts. Together they supply the trading-instruction element (bid/offer/hit/lift).
• Franke — a configurable interactive chart application; supplies user interactivity with the chart (selection, configuration, overlays).
• Jones or Ram — direct manipulation of the graphic to trade (Jones: touch the plot to generate a buy/sell signal with an order-summary sub-screen; Ram: interactive grid-based graphical real-time securities trading).
• US 5,325,481 and US 5,339,392 supply the "in response to a selection, display a user-definable panel/dialog with live data" element that the '190 claims recite as the trading dialog box.
• US 6,906,717 (Microsoft) — "Multiple chart user interface" — anticipates the FIG. 8 "singularity"/multi-graph aspect and supports the claim-6/14/22/35 "confines of the axes" limitation.

Motivation to combine (Ground B): the references are all in the financial-data/GUI arts, all address information overload, and KSR permits combination solely on the basis of "design incentives and other market forces." The '190 patent's own Background supplies the motivation: tables overwhelm traders, graphs aid pattern recognition, and traders need to act on what they see. Combining an interactive chart (Franke) with an order-entry mechanism (Minton/Broka) through direct manipulation (Jones/Ram) is the predictable result of following that stated need.

6. Ground C — Non-Patent Citations as anticipation-of-the-concept evidence

The Yahoo! and Bloomberg "Intraday Chart" pages and the comdirect UK Shares page (archived 2002-10-03) show, in the primary references' own field, two-axis graphs plotting a financial curve against time. Their role in a § 103 analysis is to supply the "graph having a first axis and a second axis ... a curve corresponding to a range of values of a financial instrument" limitation as well-known background art, so that the inventive weight of the claims collapses onto only the "select a portion → display a trading dialog box" step. Once reduced to that single step, the combination with any order-entry dialog reference (Friesen, Kirwin, Minton, Broka) is conclusory.

7. Secondary Considerations

No persuasive objective indicia of non-obviousness are of record. Petitioners' Reply in CBM2016-00038 is captioned verbatim: "CTD Fails To Provide Any Evidence Supporting Secondary Considerations Of Nonobviousness." Independently, the objective trajectory of the field cuts against the patent:

• The sheer number of third-party citations to the '190 patent (42 in the Google Patents "Cited By" view; 117 in the expanded view) by Trading Technologies, Rosenthal Collins Group, CFPH/Cantor, BGC, iCharts, Palantir and others indicates followers, not a pioneering departure that the industry was unable to reach independently.
• Contemporaneous § 103 art (Friesen/Jones/Kirwin) was published and pending before the 2002-11-27 filing, meaning the claimed subject matter was reached independently and earlier by others in the same field — the classic "simultaneous invention" signal of obviousness.
• The patent has expired (anticipated 2022-11-27), and the commercial embodiment (eSpeed) never produced a nexus-tested showing of unexpected results, long-felt-but-unsolved need tied to the claimed features, or copying.

8. Conclusion

Claims 1–42 of US 7,113,190 B2 are obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.

1. Primary holding (adjudicated): Friesen (WO 01/16852) + Jones (US 2002/0120551) + Kirwin (WO 01/46841) render all 42 claims obvious — CBM2016-00038 FWD (2017-08-18), affirmed Chart Trading Dev., LLC v. Interactive Brokers LLC, Nos. 2018-1102/-1104 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 17, 2018) (Rule 36).
2. Alternative holdings (from the page's own prior-art section): (a) Lozman + Minton/Broka + Franke + Jones/Ram; (b) Lozman/Franke + Kirwin + US 5,325,481/US 5,339,392; (c) the intraday-chart NPL as background art reducing the claims to a single, well-known dialog-box step.
3. Motivation to combine exists in every ground under KSR: same field, same express problem (order-entry speed and accuracy), admissions in the '190 specification itself, known GUI idioms combined predictably, and strong market/design incentives identified in the references themselves.
4. No secondary considerations of nonobviousness are of record.

Confidence and caveats

• High confidence: the composition of the PTAB's § 103 ground and its outcome; the Federal Circuit Rule 36 affirmance and its date (Dec. 17, 2018); the disclosures of Friesen, Jones, and Kirwin as quoted above (taken from the national-phase/priority documents and the CBM exhibits, not from secondary paraphrase); the status and dates in the Google Patents record.
• Moderate confidence: my element-by-element mapping tables are a reconstruction from the references themselves plus the CBM record (Petitioners' Reply, Patent Owner's Notice of Appeal, and the May 11, 2017 oral hearing transcript). I did not obtain the full text of the FWD (Paper 46) or the Petition, so I cannot quote the Board's precise limitation-by-limitation findings. Any statement above attributed to "the Board" should be treated as consistent with, but not verbatim from, that decision.
• Lower confidence: the specific date on which the Board adopted its constructions and the exact weight given to Prof. Donefer's testimony; and the statutory subsection under which each reference qualifies (I have given the likely § 102(a)/(b) or § 102(e) basis but have not verified every pre-AIA filing date, particularly for the "Cited By" references such as US 10,354,322, whose priority date of 2001-10-18 I have taken as reported and which would make it § 102(e)-qualified only for its U.S. disclosure).
• Not verified: the one-day date discrepancy noted at the top (2002-11-26 vs. 2002-11-27) in the Unified Patents record for US 7,113,190 B2.