Posted on 02/11/2002 9:43:29 AM PST by Oxylus
BT Group PLC will appear in a New York federal court on Monday to try to enforce a patent it says covers all hyperlinking. BT claims it invented the hyperlink in 1976, and anyone who uses the World Wide Web owes them money.
If upheld, the patent would give BT the right to collect royalties from any Internet Service Provider.
BT sued Prodigy Communications after the ISP refused to purchase a license for the right to use hyperlinks, the clickable links that connect one web page to another. If Prodigy loses the case, other ISPs would also be charged royalties.
BT was granted the US patent back in 1989. It had been filed when the then-Post Office was developing an online information service, called Prestel. Patents were also granted in other countries, but have since expired.
BT sent letters to 16 ISPs in June of 2000 after someone in the company rediscovered the patent in its files. The patent expires in 2006 but, if upheld, ISPs could owe huge back royalties.
"We believe we have a duty to protect our intellectual property and we would expect companies to pay a reasonable royalty based on the revenues that they have enjoyed through the use of that intellectual property," a BT spokeswoman told Reuters.
Exclusive right
But critics say the patent claim is overly broad and could drive up the cost of the internet access for users. It could even allow BT to decide who gets to use the web and who does not, they say.
"Is it good public policy to allow patents like this? I think this claim illustrates the problems you've got with the patent system," says James Love, director of the Consumer Project on Technology, a Washington-based advocacy group. "They would have an exclusive right, the right to stop you cold from using the Web."
Other critics do not think the patent will hold up. Gregory Aharonian, publisher of the Internet Patent News Service, has written that the patent will probably be invalidated because some people were using similar technology before 1976.
One potential piece of "prior art" can be seen on a 1968 video clip, where Stanford researchers demonstrated an online editing system that uses hyperlinks.
Sorry, Laz, but I invented the letter T. We'll split the proceeds.
That's silly... Leters cant be patented, only copyrighted.
Seriously, if you don't renew a patent (and pay the maintance fee) it reverts to public domaine. I know, some of mine have...
Also, patents used to run for 17 years (now it's 20), and the patent is not valid if it was ever used before, or a discription ever published before the application was made. It is not common knowledge, but a patent search means nothing. You dont even have to have one made. It just protects you from wasting your money on patenting something that is in public domain.
If the patten supposedly expires in 2006, it would have to have been patented in 1989. When was the supposeed patent application?
This is a bunch of BUNK!
You owe me one dollar.
Bullsh*t.
Two dollars for using B in a profanity. Thank you for patronizing our fine letter!
It is loony to suggest that the inventor (if the patent were valid) would shut down the Internet. No, the inventor would collect a reasonable royalty for his innovation, during the patent term, and then it would thereafter be dedicated to the public, just as the framers intended. We don't deny patent rights for REALLY important inventions. We let the inventor set the price.
Not without my say-so -- I invented breathing.
No, it doesn't work. Rather than invoke legal costs of indeterminate amount, several companies have actually licensed Amazon's ludicrous "One-Click" patent.
There is prior art on hyperlinks going back to the 1960s, and a description of hypertext was published in 1945.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
So logically they only owe you half their money.
Did you or did you not invent the lettet "T"?
We're worried about you Laz...
HyperCard was one of the inspirations for the World Wide Web. Here is an article by the inventor of WWW (no, not Al Gore). Of course, 'hypertext' is a concept even older.
This document was an attempt to persuade CERN management that a global hypertext system was in CERN's interests. Note that the only name I had for it at this time was "Mesh" -- I decided on "World Wide Web" when writing the code in 1990.W3snip
"Hypertext" is a term coined in the 1950s by Ted Nelson [...], which has become popular for these systems, although it is used to embrace two different ideas. One idea (which is relevant to this problem) is the concept: "Hypertext": Human-readable information linked together in an unconstrained way.
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