[Random-bits] Gregory Aharonian: Worst business method claim of 2000

Fri, 28 Jan 2000 12:26:34 -0500

-------
       Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 11:43:12 -0500 (EST)
          From:  Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com>
            To: 
               patent-news@world.std.com
         Subject: PATNEWS: Worst business method claim of 2000

!20000128  Worst business method claim of 2000

    We haven't even left January, and I already I have a good candidate
for the worst business method claim of 2000, bad enough I will probably
use it in my talk next week.  Here it is (citing only one non-patent prior
art item, an SEC regulation):

    6014643
    Interactive securities trading system                         
    Filed: Aug. 26, 1996                 

    What is claimed is:

    1. A method for trading securities between individuals, comprising:

    entering an offer of a first individual to trade a security on a first
    data processing system;

    transmitting the offer to additional data processing systems, including
    a second data processing system, over a public communication network;

    entering a reply of a second individual on the second data processing
    system, wherein the reply is in response to the offer;

    executing a trade of the security based on information contained in
    the offer for consideration specified in the reply to the offer, whereby
    the security is traded efficiently between the first individual and the
    second individual;

    transmitting to the second data processing system additional offers to
    trade in the security formed by additional individuals;

    ranking the offer formed by the first individual and the additional
    offers formed by the additional individuals according first to a price
    value, then secondly, according to a quantity value; and

    displaying the offer formed by the first individual and the additional
    offers by the additional individuals according to the ranking step on a
    graphical user interface on the second data processing system.

That's right, a securities trading system where incoming bids are ranked
by price and volume.  Assuming that is not utterly unnovel, it has to be
utterly obvious, in light of what has gone on in a certain city in this
country from the last thirty years.  Where are the citations from all of
the financial journals that have reported on trading systems technologies
from the last thirty years?  Where are the citations from all of the
product literature from companies that have been selling trading system
technology?

A suggestion to PTO management.  Across the river from PTO facilities is a
big pretty building called the Amtrak train station.  If you go there, and
get on one of the big shiny trains and head north, three hours later you
will arrive in a city, which if you walk about 40 blocks south come to a
magical, mystical place called, .....................  WALL STREET.

It is pathetically searched business method patents like this that are
troublingly Wall Street and the Fortune 500.  Activities they have been
doing for decades being allowed as patents.  And it is going to get worse
because despite PTO management announcements of new initiatives to solve
this problem, they will achieve little because a) they refuse to examine
why prior initiatives have failed, b) they refuse to implement any serious
quality control before and after the introduction of new initiatives, and
c) and they don't understand the logistics of supplying large numbers of
examiners for large numbers of patent applications with even small amounts
of non-patent prior art.  In short, they ignore standard business practices
for achieving process improvement, because to use such practices could lead
to improvements that jeopardize the quantity-versus-quality goals that
please their "customers".

Greg Aharonian
Internet Patent News Service

-- 
James Love, Consumer Project on Technology
P.O. Box 19367        | http://www.cptech.org
Washington, DC 20036  | mailto:love@cptech.org
Voice 1.202.387.8030  | fax 1.202.387.8030