Euronext-Liffe, the
pan-European derivatives exchange, is facing a patent fight from a
former employee over who owns the exchange’s trading
platform.
The Financial Times reports that the former
marketing employee claims he owns the patent rights over the
exchange’s electronic trading platform.
The case is set to highlight the relatively low level of patents
covering technology used in the City.
In the Liffe case, says the FT, a High Court judge has already
ruled that the inventions Pavel Pinkava devised while working for
Liffe between 2001 and 2005 were not made in the course of his
"normal duties".
But the judge also decided that the inventions were made after
Pinkava was specially asked to develop an exchange-tradable credit
derivative.
"It was in solving this problem that Dr Pinkava made his
inventions. They were, thus, made in the course of his specially
assigned duties," said the judge.
The FT reports that the inventions covered the electronic
trading of various financial instruments, including credit default
swaps, credit interest swaps, interest rate swaps and overnight
index swaps.
Pinkava is said to have believed the system he devised belonged
to Liffe, but he later received advice that it belonged to him. He
then applied for four patents in the US.
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