Patent decision

BL number

O/276/04

Concerning rights in

GB0217203.9

Hearing Officer

Mr S Probert

Decision date

9 September 2004

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

eSpeed Inc

Provisions discussed

PA1977 Section 1(2)(c); Rule 39 PCT

Keywords

Excluded fields (refused)

Related Decisions

None

Summary

A method of limiting exposure to financial risk by imposing a monetary limit on the accumulated value of trades (e.g. bonds, futures etc.) that a trader can make in one day. Because a significant number of bids or offers may fail during the course of the day, the idea behind the invention is to take account of these failed bids/offers when deciding whether or not a trader has reached his/her credit limit. This is done by subtracting the value of failed trades from the total value of offers and bids accumulated by a trader during a day's trading. The final step of the invention involves shutting off the trader's ability to trade over the system when his/her credit limit has been exceeded.

The Hearing Officer concluded that the invention was a method of doing business as such.

Although the method uses a computer program, the Hearing Officer considered that the computer program was purely incidental, and he did not regard the invention as relating to a program for a computer as such.

Full decision O/276/04 23Kb