Cantor Fitzgerald subsidiary eSpeed says the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted summary judgment of non-infringment for the most recent versions of its Dual Dynamic and eSpeedometer products, which are designed to improve execution times and price displays. This judgment is appropriate when no reasonable jury could find that the patents were infringed by the accused products, says eSpeed.

In a statement to the press TT argues this particular ruling only applies to certain products and that other eSpeed products are part of the suit.

TT says it expects the case to proceed to trial on these other products. A trial date is set for 10 September 2007.

This week's ruling follows the court's claim construction decision on 31 October 2006, where it rejected TT's interpretation of various terms in the asserted patents.

Commenting on the latest ruling, Howard Lutnick, chairman, CEO and president of eSpeed, says: "The court has again supported our belief that our eSpeed and ECCO products do not infringe the Trading Technologies patents."

"We look forward to resolution of the remaining issues, including those related to whether Trading Technologies' patents are valid," he says in a statement.

TT has sued around sixteen futures brokers over the last two years over its patented MD Trader technology - an order-entry screen that displays multiple prices so that users can judge the depth of a market - which is part of its X_Trader order entry platform.

Earlier this year a Chicago-based intellectual property specialist, Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione, filed 'requests for re-examination' to the US Patent and Trademark Office regarding two patents held by TT. Brinks said the requests "cite substantial new questions of patentability regarding the claims of each patent".

TT said the law firm was recycling a claim from its current litigation against eSpeed, but if the patent office granted the re-examination request it is confident that the validity of its patents would be upheld.