British Telecom, Hyperlinking And Mr. Englebart

tewl writes: "Saw this [article] on [New Scientist] -- 'BT's hopes of enforcing its U.S. patent on Internet hyperlinking (New Scientist, 1 July, p 17) may be dashed by an old movie clip. The U.S.-based Internet Patent News Service is pointing patent lawyers to a website which says it hosts film of a prior demonstration of hyperlinking prior demonstration of hyperlinking. BT is basing its claim on a 1976 patent (4873662) that through a legal quirk remains in force until 2006. The 90-minute film was shot by Stanford University in 1968 when Douglas Englebart showed 1000 people the first mouse -- using it to click on hyperlinks.'" What's not open-and-shut here?

Comments

Re:Broken link Demo

[Misch]

More specifically Real Video Demonstration of Hyperlinking.

Re:Vannevar Bush

[JoeBuck]

You are probably thinking of the hypothetical "memex" device proposed in his article As We May Think that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1945. He did not demonstrate anything, he only described it.

Actually read the patent

[Great_Geek]

This first time the story came up, I actually looked up the BT patent. As it turns out, they did not patent the hyperlink as so many people have been flaming. The patent is about hyperlinks over the telephone network. As I recall, the initial news release said BT is only going after the ISP and not sites; this makes sense given their patent.

The BT patent may or may not stand up, and it may be Good or Evil, these are all up for discussion; but at least flame them for what they are doing.

Cavemen invented hyperlinking

[TBHiX]

It's true! Picture it, many years ago...

Ogg (looking at stick propped under huge boulder): "Hmf. Writing on stick say, 'Push here to view Cave Defense Strategy.'"

Mogg: "Ug. I push." (press)

*** RRRRRUUUUUMMMMBLEE ****

-TBHiX-

If nothing else watch these videos

[Randy Rathbun]

A few weeks ago here on /., there was a story showing three of the clips from this presentation. I ended up seaching a while before I found the whole thing, but I tell ya what, it was worth it.

I am not sure how much of all of the stuff in the videos were actually in use in '68, such as the database and the way you could jump from level to level, but I have a feeling that everything presented was just wowing the folks who were in the auditorium that day.

Looking back at the presentation, everything done there is still done today, with the exception of that weird ass 5 key keyboard Doug was using. Ya got email with message threads, relational databases, the mouse, multi media video, networking to a far away computer... I find something new each time I watch it.

But, whoever it was that decided NOT to make the computer go "bbeep! buzz! honk!" every time it started computing something - that is the person who's hand I want to shake! That would drive me nuts after a while - come to think of it, I think I would rather listen to that all day than the Win9x startup music.


Vote Nader

Real address.. http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite

[Hadean]

Kinda sed some words twice and added a few characters at the end of the URL there (what of "Use Preview Button!" don't people get?)

http://sloan.stanford.edu/Mous eSi te/1968Demo.html

Tesla....

[azephrahel]

When some of the first computing patents started going through, they relized that alot of their ideas were previously patented, or partially in some cases by a certain mr Nicola Tesla. This is reportedly where the precident started to only looking back a hundred years or so for patents. IMHO they should revoke all patents and go back through them one by one, beacuse they'd end up finding that half the pantents in the past 10 years are probably invalid due to either prior use or even prior patent. But then again the government doens't ask me ;)

*Whap* Stupid Company!

[Electric Angst]

Don't you wish you had a stick you could hit corporations with...

*Whap!* Bad British Telecom! No Patent!
*Whap!* Bad Amazon! No One-Click!

The person who invents the corporate-whapping mechanism will become my one true personal hero...
--

Re:*Whap* Stupid Company!

[Bob Uhl]

A union is just as bad as a monopoly--it is a monopoly on labour. Screws with the economic system something fierce. They were desperately needed when the monopolists and oligopolists of the last century abused their positions. If we could dissolve the megacorps and return to a free market, we would not have any need for the unions.

Not to mention that unions are just as corrupt and self-serving as any corporation. Take a look at the performing industry for an example; to move a picture on a set takes three members of three unions! If one is to show a truck in a film, a teamster mus tbe hired to sit on his hands during filming--even if it is background and already on the street. Unions are no better than the corps. At least a corporation is honest--it wants to increase shareholder value. Unions claim to be for fairness, but really would love to get $100,000/yr. and a thirty-minute break every hour for every janitor and machinist.

Don't deceive yourself--no-one in this world is pure. Not you, not me, not Bush, not Gore, not Nader, not corporations and not unions.

Wait A sec...

[LordHunter317]

But the thing is, that was NLS hyperlinking and this is <i>Internet</i> hyperlinking. I mean, come on, the two must be sooo different! Why should the patent not be enforced? I mean then, we can sue every person who's every made a webpage and only be the biggest company on Earth? Really now! :)<p>

Re:Editing

[Xerithane]

not the editors
WTF is an editors job then?
Hm, editor; one who edits. Hence, they should edit whatever post is going to be posted. Of course, anyone who confuses Adobe with a little house of mud probably isn't too apt at clicking either. It is getting horrendous. Slashdot tries to push itself as a journalism site, yet all they really do is publish other peoples gibberish with links.
Bring Slashdot back to what made it popular, a link site with a message board attached to it. It was a portal, and that was what it was good at. It should not be a news site. It should not be for journalism. The only time I admired the journalism on slashdot was when Jon Katz posted a feature. While I seldom agree with Jon Katz anti-witchhunt and extremist point of view -- it was/is journalism.
The "journalistic" content of slashdot now consists of interviews with their friends and collegues, and occasionally someone with higher visibility that has input from the message board instead of Slashdot "journalists".
I'm finding myself looking at other sites like linuxtoday.com for real nerd-news. They just link, and that's what Slashdot did to make it popular.
I suppose I can't blame them, the old philosphy of do it till your popular then do what you want seems in effect. Unfortunately a lot of the people who made slashdot what it is today are getting fed up with the constant idiocy spewing forth from the posters.
The only person that I think doesn't make routine mistakes and blanket idiotic statements is CmdrTaco because it seems he still holds the ideal of slashdot there, post links with summary and if you have something to add, add it -- otherwise just let the link be.


nerdfarm.org

Simpsons?

[omnifrog]

Wasn't there a Simpsons episode about this? Some bum claims to have invented Itcy and Scratchy, but the film strip that proves this burns up?

Mirror the movie quickly before it's too late!!!

Vannevar Bush

[FPhlyer]

I think Vannevar Bush (is that spelling right?) demonstrated the basic /concepts/ of hyperlinking back in the 1940's (although the actual technologies involved did not exist at the time. Would this, or would it not, be an example of "prior art"? (YES. This is an invitation for further discussion on the subject.)

Why doesn't BT just give up?

[AFCArchvile]

Their tactics were as unethical as an ex post facto law, but it's the other way around, chronologically. Here, they were creating a patent before a system could be invented to run the subject of the patent. I think that there should be a rule for new patent applicants that the subject of the patent in question should be demonstrated somehow, be it a prototype or otherwise. If a rule like this already exists, then I'd at least be happy for that.