BT To Enforce Patent On Hyperlinking?

Bazzargh writes: "This article at nothingventured (annoying but free registration required) says that British Telecom have hired Scipher to enforce (in the US) an old patent -- predating the WWW -- that they hold on the concept of hyperlinking! Apparently they'll be seeking compensation from all ISPs. I've had a look on the IBM Patents Database but I can't see the patent referred to."

Comments

Here is a link to the Patent

[jeff_bond]

Here is a link to the patent on the IBM patent database.

Jeff

But "A HREF=" precedes link text...

[lavorgeous]

The patent says that (paraphrased) the link text is the first part, the address is the second part.

In HTML, the address (HREF attribute) comes first, then the link text.

May seem silly, but Motorola patented cell-phones with flip-down microphones. So what did the competition do? They created cell-phones with flip-up earpieces.

I know I'm nit-picking, but maybe it'll work. Any thoughts?

Here's a login.

[pen]

l:slashdotuser p:freelogin

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Re:Granted 9 years later = a 26 year monopoly!

[Masem]

I recently learned that the person or company that issues a patent can 'indefinitely' extend the finalization of the patent process (that is, the move of the patent from being applied for to being accepted), by 'forgetting' to apply for some form to the USPTO, thus having a fine of $500 to be paid to the USPTO, and thus holding the patent in limbo for another year. $500/yr is NOTHING compared to some of the benefits that come from just holding the patent.

Bring Back Buzby!

[jd]

An infuriating talking yellow cartoon bird at least didn't give with one claw and rip away with the other.

This has GOT to be the most blatant scam BT has pulled in a long time. It's certainly comparable to their 35 GBP connect charges + time charges + packet charches + phone charges, for their early rival to the Internet, the International Packet Switch Stream.

The idea may have been patented, but "linking" has existed to the earliest days of man. A bit before BT's time! The idea of placing a reference, rather than a complete description, appears in early forms of writing, early naming systems (ever wondered how people got the surname of Cook, Baker, Smith, etc?), early artwork (cave paintings are essentially URLs to the animals being hunted), myths and legends (cross-references are everywhere in that stuff), and even appears in early architecture.

So, unless the patent can be shown to have been granted 10,000 years ago, in which case I'd check it's expiry date, it has been in common usage prior to the patent being granted, which is grounds for dismissal of the patent.

Prior-Art-a-Palooza!

[SoupIsGood Food]

Any Mac afficionado worth her single-button mouse knows the name Vannevar Bush and his concept of hypermedia, which detailed most of what's covered in that patent, only this was well before the second world war. Ted Nelson has worked for most of the second half of the twentieth century bringing Bush's vision into fruition using computer science. The technology he developed is called "hypertext", and has been implemented in everything from the old Xerox Star to the Apple's Hypercard. Hypercard has been around since '87, and does pretty much what the BT patent describes.

Prior art, bay-bee! Can't wait to see the AOL (doing GUI-centric internetworking before internetworking was cool) lawyers put the smack-down on these idiots.

SoupIsGood Food

OK Cool, close but no cigar....

[DebtAngel]

IANAL, but you would know that two sentences in.

This specifically deals with documents stored on servers, sent through a PSTN to a terminal. It would seem to me, that if you asked six random people (i.e. the jury in the civil lawsuit) to equate a web server and a browser to a server and a client, they wouldn't do it. Especially if one of them has a cable modem.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Personally, I think Microsoft should buy Nothern Telecom - that way they can say they invented the hyperlink, just like they invented the Symbolic Link!

Then hopefully they will go on to prove that black is white and Steve Ballmer (I don't feel like picking on Bill Gates any more - it's too easy) will get killed at the next zebra crossing.

Read the patent -- it won't fly...

[Wee]

From the IBM Patents DB:

This invention relates to an information handling system in which information is derived from a computer at a remote point and transmitted via the public telephone network to terminal apparatus. The invention also includes the terminal apparatus itself.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, but the patent mentions phone lines, central servers, and "terminal apparatus" quite a bit. Which doesn't sound like the WWW at all. Sounds a lot more like gopher to me.

Anyway, they would have to claim that the "phone lines" are the Net's backbone, the "central server" is anyone with Apache running, and the "terminal apparatus" is the browser.

Here's some more that makes it sound distincntly unWWW-like:

It has been proposed to provide for domestic and/or business consumers a simplified form of computer terminal by means of which information stored in a computer can be obtained from it via the public telephone network. The form of the terminal is different from a conventional computer terminal, both in the simplicity of its operation and in the form of its display.
...
the screen in the form of a sequence of progressively more detailed indices by means of which an operator is enabled to key-in to a key pad provided for the terminal numbers identifying a particular page of information which he requires. Since the system is to be operated by unskilled operators it is important that the key required be of self-evident nature and inevitably this will restrict the nature of facilities which the computer can provide.

Difficulties arise in such a system, however, because of the need to ensure the simplicity of operation of the terminal, bearing in mind the likelihood that the significance of particular keying inputs may need to be varied in dependence on the data being displayed.

It is an object of the present invention to alleviate the above difficulty.

Now tell me that sounds like the concept of hyperlinking. I don't think so. The only thing they even came close to getting right was the part about "the system is to be operated by unskilled operators". There's no arguing with that.

I really hope we can get some US patent reform. Does anyone know of a decent movement to let our US representatives know how silly this has all become? I mean, everyone smells money in the "digital goldrush", and so they do inane thingsd like attempt patent enforcements like this. But everyone forgets that the only people to make a lasting living off the California Goldrush 1800's were the guys selling food and equipment to the miners (ever wonder where Levi's Jeans came from?). Everyone would be much better off letting the WWW do what it wants while concentrating on becoming the one that facillitates those goals.

This whole thing blows.

-B