US SUPREME COURT STAYS RULING THAT SETTLEMENT PRICES ARE NOT COPYRIGHTABLE

Posted March 18, 2008

ATLANTA – The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected further appeals by the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) of its suit originally brought in 2002 against derivatives exchange and over-the-counter markets operator IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) concerning the right of the ICE and other market participants to use publicly available NYMEX settlement prices. NYMEX claimed the prices were its intellectual property and it had a copyright on this information.

“We have long maintained that NYMEX's litigation was commercially motivated to stifle competition and protect market data revenues on publicly available information,” says Jeffrey C. Sprecher, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ICE. “Throughout this protracted legal process, ICE has remained confident that its use of NYMEX settlement prices in connection with its derivatives products did not violate intellectual property rights of NYMEX. We are pleased that this matter has now been put to rest with finality.”

Previously, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in ICE’s favor, as had a US District Court and the US Copyright Office.