GAIN Capital will not have to produce additional data from its JIRA system in a patent infringement lawsuit filed by OANDA. Magistrate Judge Douglas E. Arpert of the New Jersey District Court has signed an order denying OANDA’s motion to compel the document production.

OANDA alleges that its competitor GAIN’s foreign exchange trading technologies infringe two of Plaintiff’s patents, U.S. Patents No. 7,146,336 (the ʼ336 Patent) and No. 8,392,311 (the ʼ311 Patent). These patents claim systems and methods for online currency trading that improve upon prior art online currency trading. Specifically, the Complaint alleged GAIN has infringed one or more claims of the Patents by making, using, selling, offering for sale, or selling products and/or services that meet each of the limitations of one or more claims of the Patents.

OANDA filed the Motion to Compel on May 10, 2023, seeking the production of data from JIRA, an issue tracking and project management software employed by GAIN during the relevant period. Specifically, OANDA seeks data from JIRA because “JIRA is the software tool GAIN has used to track when particular versions of the accused products were deployed or retired,” and “JIRA thus contains material technical information, including information relevant to understanding the design and function of GAIN’s accused products, as well as when particular versions of the software were deployed.”

GAIN argued the Motion should summarily be denied, for several reasons. For instance, GAIN noted that JIRA is simply a third party tracking and management software, and not used to “conduct substantive work,” thus, “source code and technical documents are stored elsewhere” and likely have already been produced by GAIN. The defendant also explained that JIRA is used by departments across GAIN and this will contain confidential customer, employee, and privileged material.

The Court sided with GAIN. The Judge said the Court is unconvinced by OANDA’s line of argument citing to the production of JIRA systems and materials in other cases as proof that the JIRA materials sought are reasonably accessible.

The Court found that the cases cited by OANDA do not contain an analysis of reasonable accessibility, the cases simply note that JIRA materials were produced in other cases, and OANDA “presupposes, without any basis to do so, that GAIN’s JIRA systems are maintained in exactly the same way as those in its cited cases.”

Let’s recall that in this lawsuit OANDA alleges that GAIN infringes two patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 7,146,336 (“the ’366 patent”) and 8,392,311 (“the ’311 patent”).

On March 5, 2013, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued United States Patent No. 8,392,311, entitled “Currency Trading System, Methods, and Software.”

The ’311 Patent teaches, among other things:

In one aspect, the present invention comprises a system for trading currencies over a computer network. A preferred embodiment comprises: (a) a server front-end; (b) at least one database; (c) a transaction server; (d) a rate server; (e) a pricing engine; (f) an interest rate manager; (g) a trade manager; (h) a value at risk server; (i) a margin control manager; (j) a trading system monitor; and (k) a hedging engine. In another aspect, the present invention comprises methods for trading currency over a computer network. In another aspect, the present invention comprises software for currency trading over a computer network.

On December 5, 2006, the United States Patent and Trademark Office duly and legally issued United States Patent No. 7,146,336, entitled “Currency Trading System, Methods, and Software.”

The ʼ336 Patent teaches, among other things:

In one aspect, the present invention comprises a system for trading currencies over a computer network. A preferred embodiment comprises: (a) a server front-end; (b) at least one database; (c) a transaction server; (d) a rate server; (e) a pricing engine; (f) an interest rate manager; (g) a trade manager; (h) a value at risk server; (i) a margin control manager; (j) a trading system monitor; and (k) a hedging engine. In another aspect, the present invention comprises methods for trading currency over a computer network. In another aspect, the present invention comprises software for currency trading over a computer network.

OANDA and GAIN Capital have clashed over discovery several times already. GAIN claims that OANDA has had complete information for a year and has lacked diligence in acting on it. OANDA insists that GAIN’s production is still incomplete, and that GAIN has consistently resisted OANDA’s efforts to obtain critical technical documents.