Who Do I contact?

[craigaudio]

Hi,

I entered a business deal with trader. We designed an automated trading system to trade the futures market. Without my knowledge he has now sold this idea to one of the big prop firms in Chicago or NYC. I do not know any more details than this but would like to track down who purchased this and start court proceedings. I hear that there is a board or forum at the CBOT where firms share information on technology they are buying, so that one person cannot sell the same idea to several of the funds and rip people off.

If anyone knows how I could start the process of tracking down this deal I would be most appreciative.

Cheers,
Craig

 

[tomorton]

You should talk to a lawyer. You will need to make a good case to the lawyer before this goes any further.

 

[Rufus_Leakey]

How copyright protects your work

Who gets copyright, types of work it covers, permitted use of copyright material, how to license and sell copyright and help resolving disputes.

www.gov.uk

You automatically get copyright protection when you create:

• original non-literary written work, such as software, web content and databases

So the trading system might be considered a jointly-owned copyright. But https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html

Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation

So it might be considered a trade secret.

Jointly Owned Intellectual Property: Everything to Know

Jointly owned intellectual property is intellectual property, or IP, that is owned by two or more people at once.

www.upcounsel.com

Jointly Owned Trade Secrets
Laws regarding the joint ownership of trade secrets are not as well defined as they are for patents and copyrights, as this is not as common. It is perhaps wise to assume though that profits derived from trade secrets will have to be shared amongst the owners and unanimous owner consent will be required to license the trade secret, although case law and statutes have little to say on this.

The Default Law of Joint IP Ownership - IPWatchdog.com | Patents & Intellectual Property Law

When such joint IP ownership is unavoidable, its consequences and mechanics must be addressed. In sum: If you must do it, don’t half-a$$ it!

www.ipwatchdog.com

Jurisdiction

United Kingdom

Copyright
No co-owner may exploit without the consent of all other co-owners (and thus an accounting of profits per the consent), which may not be unreasonably withheld.


Each co-owner may independently enforce.

(See Art. 10 of Copyright Act)

Trade Secret

No trade secret legislation; thus breach of contract action (where an NDA is in place) or


common law breach of confidence action is available.

In the absence of any contractual relationship, a co-owner of confidential information cannot prevent the other co-owner from using or exploiting the confidential information (see Murray v Yorkshire Fund Managers Ltd (Court of Appeal) [1998] 1 WLR 951).

So as tomorton suggested, it sounds like you might want to contact a lawyer. Of course, it might be a good idea to first ask your partner to explain what happened.

 

[TickCOM]

Contact a lawyer as the very first step.

 

[Farm Yard Forex]

100% speak to a lawyer and explain to them exactly what your contribution was as they will know the nuances of the law and as such what protection you are entitled to in this instance and therefore how much of a case you have against the other party.

 

[NVP]

so difficult to prove - but good luck

 

[joyny]

Lawsuits result is fuzzy...do you have signed agreements and/or specifications of algorythm ?

If you are true author of idea then:
1. Think how you can improove algorithm. There is allways possible to implement improovements
2. Now you have a better system and you can offer it to all prop firms