The Delaware district court has spurned a submission by eSpeed, the electronic bond market, for an injunction against rivals BrokerTec for infringing its patent on electronic trading technology. The case is coming to trial in February 2005.
The judge said that, since the injunction would force BrokerTec to go back to operating on an old platform until the court case was resolved, it was against the public interest. eSpeed, a subsidiary of New York-based brokerage Cantor Fitzgerald, and BrokerTec, a subsidiary of UK-based Icap, are the biggest players in the $400 billion a day US Treasury bond market -with eSpeed claiming a two thirds market share.