The continuing rivalry between fundamental indexing advocates, Rob Arnott, chairman of Research Affiliates LLC, and Jeremy Siegel, a finance professor at Wharton, takes center stage in Friday's WSJ Fund Track, penned by Shefali Anand. The battle over the rights to fundamental indexing has been ongoing for several years now.

Fund industry insiders have told The MFWire that Arnott has considered taking the matter to court.

In the Fund Track column, Anand wrote that Arnott has attempted to patent the idea but, has thus far been unsuccessful. Siegel maintains that a "basic intellectual notion" like fundamental indexing can not be patented.

Anand also checked with Morningstar to see how each man's version of fundamental indexing is playing out in the market so far. The comparison was made between Siegel's WisdomTree Funds and PowerShares RAFI funds, which use the indexing system created by Arnott. According to Morningstar data at this point in the life of each of the company's funds, the returns often differ by a percentage point or less.  

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