Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Computer graphics processing
Reexamination Certificate
1998-04-13
2001-04-03
Vo, Cliff N. (Department: 2772)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Computer graphics processing
C345S440000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06211880
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to display apparatus presenting a comparison of analogous components not linked by a definable physical relationship from which one component could be extrapolated from another, and more particularly to apparatus for displaying trends in a process related to financial markets, having a number of analogous components each having a corresponding, variable element.
2. Background Information
The trading of financial instruments such as stocks and bonds has largely become a computer supported operation. Almost all significant trading of securities is accomplished by computer pursuant to the established protocols of the major exchanges. For example, on the New York Stock Exchange, orders for specific securities are entered at a terminal operated by a licensed agent with a “seat” on the exchange. This order is processed through a stock “specialist”, a firm that is obligated to manage transactions for a given security. The specialist clears the stock trade at a price reflecting the current supply-demand environment for that security. Upon confirmation of the trade, the parties up-date their respective positions via computer controlled memory. For the most part, the above transaction is accomplished through computer terminals linked together by communication buses or telephone lines.
A different arrangement is provided for certain over the counter trading associations of which NASDAQ “National Association of Securities Dealers” is probably the most prominent. These exchanges avoid the use of specialists in specific stocks and membership does not invoke a seat on an exchange. To the contrary, NASDAQ is established as a computer integrated market of select securities, wherein members trade as agents for their customers and make markets in specific securities themselves. To operate effectively in this environment the members must have a sophisticated communication system that permits entry and up-dating of current stock positions supporting the desired transactions. This invokes the creation and operation of a central on-line database for the securities to be transacted. Members enter into the NASDAQ database via a remote terminal and input their request as more fully described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,297,032 issued Mar. 22, 1994.
These operations are heavily dependent on appropriately programmed computer systems, for example, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,674,044 to Kalmus et al., titled “Automated Securities Trading System”. In addition to supporting such transactions, dealers also participate in making markets in individual securities, i.e., the dealer is also the principal and sells the securities out of dealer inventory.
The above operations are performed in real time with the participation of hundreds of competing buyers and sellers forming a highly competitive environment. A central element to success in such a market is the rapid access to vital information on current market conditions in terms of market trends and recent swings to support the ability to enter quickly to establish or withdraw a price. For example, a trend away from a given security is first indicated by a drop of market makers on the inside market. Participants with an early indication of the soaring market are in the best position to profit from it, “or reduce their exposure”.
This process has become more complicated with customers communicating with their traders on-line directly through the use of personal computers. In order for such customers to maximize the benefits of their trades it is imperative that they have the ability to assimilate the vital information available on current market conditions in real time. Many of those customers are substantially less sophisticated than their traders and need to have that information presented in a user friendly manner that they can readily adsorb, understand and apply.
In the past, the traders were largely dependent on information supplied directly from the database of transactions in a form selected primarily for ease of communication. Although the on-line data was rich with current market information, the form of this data simply was not optimized to permit rapid extraction and review to support trading; to the contrary, the feed data was mostly devoid of trend information in the market and the traders had to mostly rely on intuition and luck in predicting market shifts.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,297,032, cited above, addressed this issue by providing a multi-tasking workstation that includes seven primary applications each of which is set in a windowed interface for implementing a plurality of security based transactional operations. While the invention provided more information, including trends, to the operators, it presented a different problem in contributing to information overload and the lack of ease of assimilation of the information. The depth of this problem is described more fully in U.S. Pat. No. 4,816,208, entitled “Alarm Management System”, issued Mar. 28, 1989. Accordingly, it is an objective of this invention to establish a display format which will communicate multiple facets of information about the markets in a form that is easily absorbed and readily understood. More particularly, it is an object of this invention to provide such a display for identifying trends that is applicable to a number of processes having a plurality of analogous components with a common variable element.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of this invention to provide a display for identifying trends in a process including a number of analogous components each having at least one corresponding, variable element that enables a display operator to readily assimilate and easily understand the trends and the corresponding information from which they are generated. In this regard, a plurality of complementary geometrically shaped fields, e.g., rectangles, each representative of the corresponding, variable element of one of the components, are displayed side by side in a graphical array. A visual pattern within each field is varied according to a common code which incrementally changes between two extremes; the displayed pattern corresponding to the last measured variation of the variable element from an intermediate reference value. The reference value is the measured empirical value of the corresponding variable element for each component chosen at a predetermined, common point in time and the extremes are common preselected deviations.
In a preferred embodiment the invention is directed to determining trends in financial markets and more particularly in stock markets. The display is rectangular with boxes within the display each representing an individual stock. Each display is dedicated to a different sector of the market. The color of the individual boxes is representative of the degree of fractional deviation of the most recent trading price of that stock from an assigned selected reference value, e.g., the price at the end of the previous trading session or the beginning of the current week, month or year. Preferably, the location of an individual stock within the display is determined by its volatility in the market, e.g., apparent sensitivity to broad changes in the market on one axis and apparent sensitivity to changes external to the market on the other axis, or stocks can be located in accordance with decreasing market share on one axis and decreasing capitalization on the other.
In the foregoing embodiment, the fractional deviation values for the various stocks are translated into colors for presentation on the display. The result is a color display in which current behavior of stock prices with respect to a selected set of reference stock prices in a selected sector of the economy is summarized in a checkerboard-like collection of visual boxes whose individual colors show the current trends in trading prices of the corresponding stock. Broad shifts or trends in stock prices in the sector appear as broad areas of a single color or of adjacent colors. The deviation of individual stocks from the t
Abeles Daniel C.
Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott , LLC
Vo Cliff N.
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