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

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.

*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...
--

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.