NinjaTrader Agrees to License Trading Technologies
MD Trader Technology

NinjaTrader has reached an agreement with Trading Technologies (TT) to license their MD Trader family of patented technology. The information below is intended to provide you with information on how this agreement may impact you as a NinjaTrader subscriber. The original press release can be reviewed here.

Background on the TT patents

Most of you are aware that in August 2004 Trading Technologies was issued a number of patents relating to their MD Trader product. The granting of the patents has caused quite a stir in the trading industry as many vendors, including NinjaTrader, had introduced a Depth of Market (DOM) interface with a static price ladder prior to the granting of these patents to TT.

In the time since the patents were granted, the CEO of TT, Harris Brumfield, wrote an open letter to the trading community asking the four primary exchanges to institute a $.025 transaction fee on all transactions as a global means to resolve any potential litigation with companies thought to infringe on the patents. The exchanges rebuffed Mr. Brumfield’s request and since then TT has been aggressively pursuing all companies thought to infringe on their patents. NinjaTrader proactively worked with TT in regards to the patents, and subsequently reached a licensing agreement.

TT License Fees

NinjaTrader has negotiated with TT transactional license fees for all futures, equities and options contracts starting January 1, 2006 as shown in the table below. These fees are ONLY applicable to NinjaTrader products that utilize the static SuperDOM trading screen. The details of how the transactions will be tracked and paid still needs to be finalized but ultimately each individual NinjaTrader subscriber will be responsible for their transactional charges. These are the lowest fees possible from Trading Technolgies.

* Except where there are multiple contracts having substantially the same underlying product, in which case they royalty for the smallest contract shall be $0.10 and the royalty for the other contracts shall be increased proportionately based on the size of the contracts. For example, the royalty for the CME's E-Mini S&P 500 and E-Mini NASDAQ-100 products shall be $0.10 and the royalty for the CME's S&P 500 and NASDAQ-100 products shall be $0.50.

** Except the two-year treasury note, for which the royalty shall be $0.50