OANDA accuses GAIN Capital of delaying patent infringement litigation
About a month after online trading major GAIN Capital, which is now owned by StoneX Group, tried to stop OANDA’s patent infringement lawsuit by launching a motion for judgment on the pleadings, OANDA has responded to the motion.
This becomes clear from a document submitted by OANDA at the New Jersey District Court on July 19, 2021.
OANDA Corporation’s First Amended Complaint (FAC) alleges that GAIN infringes two of its patents, U.S. Patents No. 7,146,336 (the ʼ336 Patent) and 8,392,311 (the ʼ311 Patent). These patents claim systems and methods for online currency trading that improve upon prior art online currency trading.
OANDA says that its complaint included numerous detailed factual allegations to preempt a reflexive challenge to software-implemented patents under 35 U.S.C. § 101 (“Section 101”). Those extensive factual allegations detail why the claims are non-abstract, embody an inventive concept, and are thus patentable.
OANDA states that, despite this, “GAIN continues to wage a campaign to delay litigating OANDA’s claims by continually challenging OANDA’s patents without first engaging in discovery”.
After this action was filed, GAIN filed a petition for Covered Business Method (CBM) review before the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB), seeking to have the ’311 and ’336 patents (along with a third patent, not at issue in this lawsuit) invalidated under Section 101.
The PTAB denied institution, determining that GAIN had mischaracterized the patents, having framed the claims too narrowly and in a way that bore little resemblance to the actual claim language. Despite that defeat, GAIN has proceeded to file a Rule 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings in this Court, contending yet again that the patents-at-issue are invalid under Section 101. This second invalidity challenge should meet the same fate, OANDA argues.
According to OANDA, GAIN’s Rule 12(c) motion fails at the outset because it defies controlling Federal Circuit authority. The Federal Circuit has made clear in several recent decisions that a motion to dismiss on invalidity grounds cannot be granted when the complaint’s factual allegations raise a factual dispute about inventiveness.
GAIN’s entire motion thus “exists in an alternative universe where trial courts are free to ignore factual allegations on a motion for judgment on the pleadings”, OANDA says, adding that “GAIN’s only engagement with the FAC’s factual allegations is to state in passing that they are conclusory, implausible, or untethered to the claim language”.
Because GAIN has provided this Court with no valid basis for refusing to accept OANDA’s validity allegations as true, the Court need go no further to deny the motion, the plaintiff argues.
Furthermore, according to OANDA, GAIN’s argument fails because it relies on a mischaracterization of the patents’ claims. OANDA explains that the patents are directed to specific improvements to prior art online currency trading systems, such as disclosing methods for improving upon the traditional “three-way handshake” by teaching methods for executing trades at a defined time and price, and systems that provide for an interest rate manager that calculates interest on a tick-by-tick basis.
OANDA argues that GAIN’s refusal to meaningfully engage with the allegations of the first amended complaint means that it never actually addresses OANDA’s contentions as to why its patents are valid; instead, GAIN merely sets up and then responds to a number of straw-man arguments.
GAIN’s Motion should be denied in its entirety, OANDA concludes.