Slashdot Mirror
British Telecom's Hyperlink Claims To Reach U.S. Court
downundarob writes: "Last year, BT said it had discovered that it holds U.S. patent 4,873,662 for the invention of hyperlink technology used on the Internet, and on Dec. 13, 2000, the London-based telecommunication company filed suit in federal court in White Plains, New York. A court date was set Monday in the lawsuit brought by British Telecommunications PLC (BT) against U.S.-based Prodigy Communications Corp. for patent infringement through the ISP's (Internet service provider) unauthorized use of the hyperlink. The full story is here."
I say I hold patent #000001, which patents the idea for any carbon-based lifeform. I hereby demand all of you to terminate existance, or pay me a sum of 1 million dollars per a cell.
During a routine check, I discovered that in 1988, I patented the letter e, I plan to sue the Library of Congress (sueing individual writers would not be "practicle" ) I have teamed with an Independant Liscensing Firm (the Mafia) to help "enforce" my patent on the letter e...
/. link to video of a prof showing off Hyperlinks in '65 or so?
Didn't BT try this before in europe and didn't
Honestly, how the hell can anyone even take this seriously?. Its even stupider than Amazons one-click shopping patent. It would take an intelligent person roughly 3 seconds to figure out that having keywords linking to other documents is a good way of linking information. In fact, I think many books such as encyclopedias and dictionaries have used something similar for a long time. (bla bla bla (see p563) bla bla bla
Are they going to sue Bible publishers for including anchors in the text?
Dear Timothy and the rest of Slashdot/Andover/VA,
Due to our patent on hyperlinking, and the fact that you hyperlinked to a story about this patent (we noticed many other hyperlinks on your page, as well), we are taking you to court.
Before settlement is reached, pelase remove all hyperlinks from your web page. Until a royalty settlement is agreed upon, it's tough-titties for you.
Sincerely,
B.T.
Before you all get started, please don't assume that we brits support this in any way, shape or form. Every self-respecting British geek despises BT for their obstructive approach to broadband internet provision. At every possible stage they have dragged their feet in an effort to keep competitors out. A few years ago their chairman made a speech in which he claimed that the internet was still not "fit for purpose". Of course, the "purpose" he had in mind was making billions for BT. This patent claim is just another attempt by BT to make money with having to compete fairly with other organizations.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Is the best we can hope for that the court (and the appeals court, and the appeals-appeals court, etc.) will slap some people around and throw out the patent? Can we dare hope that instead we will see some real attention given to our intellectual property system- even to the extent that Skylarov won't be a criminal anymore? This just makes me sick.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
It seems strange that an organisation that claims to have invented a part of the Internet seems so inept at implementing it. As a bt interent "anytime" customer, I can theoretically dial up at any time, for as long as I want to. In practice, I can spend five minutes at a time attempting to connect; when I eventually do get online, I'm cut off after two hours online.
BT's rollout of DSL has been nothing short of abysmal - as was its marketing deployment of ISDN before. Indeed, I would argue that BT itself has done a great deal to hold back Britain from becoming a truly "connected" country: the very concept of broadband is alien to many people here, and who can blame them: 40 quid a month for a connection that's a) not really _all_ that fast, and b) will likely be unavailable on a regular basis, if BT's dialup service offers any indications.
That BT is pursuing this patent is not only laughable: it's also offensive to those of us who have had to put up with their poor service, arrogant behaviour, and general crapness.
since hyperlinks are simply the "mechanization" of references. Think of footnotes as prior art here. And what is a list of phone numbers printed in a book, relative to a set of linked email addresses? But one shudders to see the means of most web based communications and commerce subjected to the arcane and so finely split hairs of legaldom.
I have a feeling that BT has a stake in Prodigy, or some influence over them. Your case can usually be strengthened if others have already caved in to your demands, and I can't see any other reason why the first company picked on would be them.
Why else choose a company thousands of kms away, and in another country? They _must_ know that Prodigy will cave on this, thereby strengthing their position with the next company they approach.
Claim 4: Looks like content-based micropayments were part of the patent as well.
Claim 5/6/7: Web servers and browsers are also included, and could be forced into RAND licensing situations if this holds up.
Shouldn't this patent be long expired by now anyway?
Please also remove all hyperlinks to your web page.
Heh, that is exactly the situation we've had with Telenor here in Norway as well.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Is it me or didn't Arthur C. Clark, also father of the geostationary satellite, describe something that can be seen as hyperlinks, in his novel 2001 A space odyssey, more precisely on the orbital station around the earth ? can't check myself, I lent the book to a friend some years ago.
From the patent:
"Informaton for display at a terminal apparatus of a computer is stored in blocks the first part of which contains the information which is actually displayed at the terminal and the second part of which contains information relating to the display and which may be used to influence the display at the time or in response to a keyboard entry signal."
Throughout the patent, references are made to "keyed digital data", but it never mentions mice, or pointing devices or point-and-click devices, etc.
So, if there is a literal interpretation, all you need to beat the patent is a mouse.
Now we just have to get the entire computer world to use these 'mice' things...
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
I've got a copy of Ted Nelson's 1974/1987 two-sided book "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" on my desk that includes a section about his "Xanadu Project" which not only talks about hyperlinks, but also micropayments and "Xanadu stands" (basically internet cafes).
Even if all of the Xanadu stuff was written in 1987 (and it wasn't), wouldn't that be prior art for this 1989 patent?
My word processor was written by Stanford Professor Donald Knuth. Who wrote yours?
BT is seen as a complete joke by many in the UK internet community.
They dragged their feet over unmetered internet access via dial-up, their network fell over earlier in the week and they are very reluctant to unbundle the local loop.
Also, their ADSL package for regualar home users is tied to USB modems and costs £40/month (approx. $56).
I read somewhere that BT just wants to test the validity of the patent. They were hinting that it was just a test case they were pursuing for it's own end and no more.
That said, anyone who knows BT knows they would charge customers for the air they breath if they could. For instance, BT still control the local telephone loop through which all of the UK has dial up, and they charge metered local calls for this.
All you hyperlinks are belong to us.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Carbon based humanoid in training.
The communication in the patent itself mentions modems operating over telephone lines of a telephone system.
That leaves networks that use Ethernet over Cat5, with switches and routers, never touching a phone line or modem, free and clear.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
From the article:
"BT owns what it calls the Hidden Page patent, which was filed in the U.S. in 1976, granted in 1989 and isn't due to expire until 2006"
Does anyone else think that is an inordinate amount of time between the filing and the granting of the patent? Maybe this is why BT forgot they even owned the patent... Maybe this is why they seem to be acting all pissy about the whole thing?
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
This one was filed in 1977 and just 23 years later BT decides they want to enforce their rights.....
In '77 they must have figured no-one was going to use hyperlinks for a licence fee so they just kept quiet 'till we couldn't do without them anymore.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
This is an awfully vague patent if you ask me. Patenting blocks of information which refer to other blocks of information by way of keystrokes sounds an awful lot like they patented a menuing system of some kind or another. Weren't keystroke-driven menus around prior to '89? Oh, you bet they were.
Given something like-
1) Display Name
2) Display Address
3) Display Phone Number
Selection:
Wouldn't pressing '1' essentially violate this patent?
Menu systems like this have been around since just briefly after day one.
A better example would be some listed information shown in brevity... say, a filename called "end_of_year_profit_report.txt" and considering that the filename contains data, it could be considered a block of information. In order to get at the second block of information, you more/cat/grep through/etc the file, right? Wouldn't that (as well) technically be a violation of the patent?
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
Ijust read the patent, and here are a few observations...
1. The patent specifically specifies a "telephone network", and use of a modem. (which is why they're not suing the W3C)
2. The patent specifically states use of a a "terminal aperatus", stating not a "traditional computer terminal".
It also lays out a plan for non-crt use via alphanumeric display and keypad. No mention of a mouse.
There are some other vague points in there, but I believe the patent is practically invalid due to the fact that it was built around technology available in 1976. Technology has grown so rapidly that this patent is nearly garbage today.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
I think I will patent the space bar and sue everyone who uses it!.
Why do you think all those people came to the USA? Just to screw the Native Americans?
I'm going down to the Boston Harbor right now and dumping *ALL* of my British bound packets right into the water.
That'll show them!
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
In 1968 Douglas C. Engelbart in this demo showed all the things we take for granted now every time we sit down at a computer, use a mobile phone or PDA - hyperlinks are not even half of it.
There is much more about Doug online here and a whole lot more on -
Enough said I think.
I presume you meant "to make money withOUT having to compete"
Sounds like MS. Which reminds me, why would they not have sued MS? Or on the other end of the scale, a really small developer or company, following a tactic against piracy,etc. Then with their legal resources they could say develop a string of legal wins that become more "evidence" in their favor.
Assuming they are already going to burn in hell, I can only hope they wind up in the version of moslem hell described here. Even if they are not moslem.
Besides, wasn't there a bunch of prior art that was found? I hope these guys get laughed out of court.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
From the article: "Last year, BT said it had discovered that it holds U.S. patent 4,873,662"
Why do I have a mental picture of Jed Clampett in my head right now?
"Look Ma, We done found a hyperlink patent!"
"Well, Goll-y!"
Seriously though, you don't just "discover" that you have a patent, you wait until the sucker is approved then try to figure out the most strategic way to get money with it. I am so sick of these patents anymore.
Earlier /. discussions on this endearing little scam can be found here and here.
BT are that desperate for a bit of reliable revenue, as what passes for their management have slammed a company deep into the ground that looked so promising just 10 years ago.
They are still many billions of pounds in the red, despite issuing the biggest cash call in British history (5.9 billion pounds), some frantic sales of overseas assets, leasing back property, and more recently spinning off their mobile business. There have been angry scenes at emergency shareholder meetings, senior brass quitting in disgrace, etc. So right now they will grab at any readies they can lay their sticky little claws on.
I wish had enough space to tell you all the times I have been let down by BT on network projects: "sleepy ISDN" syndrome, installation "engineers" who couldn't find the right spot to put in a line despite my drawing big black boxes on the wall in magic-marker labelled "BT install here", etc. So much for the magic wand of privatisation, curing all those horrible nationalised industries.
Their mgt dug their heels in on ISDN roll-out to protect old business; they are finally being dragged by the regulator out of the same old racket on DSL. They are one of the worst-run businesses I've ever had the misfortune to work with. Starting out as a privatised monopoly with all the assets, skills and R&D firepower of the British govt's old monopoly telecoms service, they have successfully sucked all the value out of what might have made a good private competitor, and I don't expect them to be around in a year's time, at least not under the name BT.
So go for it lads, hoover it up while you can, and maybe you can cheer the shareholders up enough in the short term to allow you a cushy trip out the door when the buyout happens.
Am I coming across as bitter here? Sorry.
Now is our chance to say "glad I don't live there", just like every response to anything that happens in America. You don't support it? Too bad its your fault, just like anything that happens here is ours. Get the the picture yet?.
1980 + 17 years = 1997; Sorry guys, your Patent have expired.
All this is really telling us is that the Stupids have taken over control of Legal Strategies Department at BT. BT must also be pretty hard up for cash to try this sham. This is probably going to cost them court costs, for Prodigy as well, if Prodigy has the brains to countersue.
As an industry of IP, lawsuit, counter-lawsuit develops we best keep in mind that it may not be lawyers who are responsible (blame it on corporate Get-Rich-Quick schemes, is this what they teach MBA's today?), buy the lawyers seem content to pursue, and in the end always manage to get paid.
Make lawyers and law firms pay out of their own pockets when they lose, particularly this big expensive corporate suits. That's about the only balance to power and it's a weak one.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
IIRC, Apple first employed Hyperlinking commercially on the Mac well over a decade ago. Consider Apple's and Xerox's suits over GUI desktops (against Microsoft and Apple respectively) and their failures. IANAL, but this seems like one of those, "If you had the patent or copyright that long ago, you should have protected your work sooner", deals where it gets tossed out of court.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm gonna bomb the BT Tower on monday, anyone with me? meet there about lunch time on the south side. I was thinking maybe crashing a small plane or helicopter into it, (you could do something that would need an air ambulance (big car crash), then get in the helicopter, and strangle the unsuspecting paramedics and then take control. the towers not very wide so the structure would probably fail easily, and you know how those 60's buildings are built to *withstand* such impacts (cough, wtc).
:(
Anyway, that should take them out.. seeing as they are responsible for my crappy slow internet access, i think its poetic justice, don't you?
oh, shit, i forgot, i should have sent this anon instead of putting my user name on it....
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Prodigy is just an ISP. Its servers just deliver hyperlinks. Much like Napster only delivered data.
Surely if you really had a patent on links, wouldn't you go after HTML software companies (Adobe, Macromedia) and browser companies (Microsoft, AOL)??
Oh no.. BT wouldn't sue Microsoft because even BTs fat pompous ass would get kicked by MS. Why not pick on Prodigy though?
Either way, BT is a ridiculous company, and this is a ridiculous lawsuit. I mean, come on.. you can get DSL in Yukon, thousands of miles from anywhere, but I can't get DSL 100 miles north of London? Morons.
They already have a colossal amount of debt. With any luck, they'll lose this case, have to shell out the $$, and hopefully we'll see them go under sometime soon. It happened to Railtrack, an even bigger sham of a privatised company.
mogorific carpentry experiments
There are several hundred hyperlinks on the main page alone! And quite a few more on every sub-page. Why, the total must run into the tens of thousands! If they start charging on a per-hyperlink basis, /.'s going to be fucked.
/. team should follow Kuro5hin's excellent example these past few days, and cut back on the hyperlinks. =P
The
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
Copyright law started bacause of corrupt brit companies trying to squeeze every pence out of the people.
There is so much prior art that pre dates this it isnt funny.
unfortunately they chose the correct court system to do this in, the super corrupt american court system.. Hell The US courts will probably retro-sue even the creator of hyperlinking (Doug something... I forget) for not paying for the right to think about it over 20 years previously.
The american court system needs to set up a system that if you sue like this and you are wrong, then the victim in your suit now owns the suing company, and all CEO's CIO's management of the origional suing company must be placed in public stockades for 1 week. (with sales of rottten fruit for throwing available within 100 feet of the stockades.)
If I recall correctly, the last flurry of /. articles on this subject included some information about an old movie or video of someone demonstrating hyperlinks. I think it was dated in the late sixties. What ever happened to that?
-- Gun
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
What we really need is more Albert Einsteins working in the Patent Office!
Seriously, it's always tempting to blame stuff like this on "stupidity" either from the company or the patent office, but I don't think that's the problem.
The root of the problem is that corporations have been granted personhood and have enormous resources--more than any person--to defend their rights. No matter how you perfect the guidelines for granting patents, corporations can still abuse them at the expense of the general public, because they have the money to fight things out in court. Even though we all think this patent is absurd, how are the courts going to hear our opinion?
My handle breaks slashcode, what does your handle do?
Why dont you just make hyperlinks to TEA that don't go anywhere.
BT are nearly bankrupt with billions of pounds in debt. How are they trying to deal with this? They sold off their overseas investments, for one. Their profitable overseas investments (as opposed to their highly unprofitable UK phone service). The only thing they've got going for them right now is BT Wireless which brings in huge revenues, primarily because the UK is entirely mobile-phone crazy. Sending text-messages seems to be the national obsession. Of course, they're spinning that off into a seperate company.
The local loop is bleeding them to death. Is this similar to the cut-throat competition that the North American telecoms have come up against over the past few years? Not likely. BT still charge per minute for local calls, as a rule. The competition is so meek, they're hardly noticable.
What's the problem then? Incompetance. Both managerial and technical incompetance on a grand scale in every department, at every level. Would anyone be sad to see them go? They've spent years trying to enforce the status quo and crush new technology to maintain their monopoly (you thought Microsoft was bad? Hah!), and bear a significant responsability for the slow uptake of the internet in the UK. No, not many people would be sad to see them go.
It all comes back to this, though. They're so desperate for cash right now, they'll try anything.
I didn't think you could selectiviely inforce a patent. IANAL, but I thought you had to enforce it completely (by reach and agreement with all parties whether or not they pay you anything is irelevant) or you lose your rights to the enforce it. Let's sum up some of the facts.
1. They filled the patent in 1976, and it was granted in 1989.
2. They have not sued anyone about this patent till now. The fact they didn't know they had it is irrelevant, they filed for it. Thus, should should have at least kept track of it's status. They really have no claim when they say they just found out the have the patent. It's been 12 years since the patent was granted, and about 25 since they filed for it.
3. They are only sueing Prodigy, and not MSN, aol, et. al. They are selectively inforcing this patent. Not to mention they are sueing all ISPs, nor are they enforcing it on an individual user or a corporate basis. I am ignoring the fact that sueing on an individual basis all personal, corporate, et. al. websites is stupid--since when has a company not done somethine stupid?
I really don't think they have much of a case. It's been about 25 years since they filled this and the internet, and especially the world wide web, has taken off since then. It really took off in the early 1990s. They didn't enforce their patent back then, so I don't think they should have the right to do so now. As the saying goes, "you snooze, you lose!". I think British Telecom needs to find another way to squeeze more money into there bottomline.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Dr. Vannevar Bush wrote an article entitled As We May Think in July, 1945 that envisioned a linking mechanism in what he called "memex" (a sort of mechanized private file and library). Taken in the abstract, this "system" is analogous to the modern computer and hyperlinking in general. So, wouldn't this qualify as prior art? I would think so, as the patent is essentially an more "modernized" and scaled down version of this already preexisting idea.
BT stink as a company. In the bad old days when they ran the whole show they charged a fortune and loved doing it. 14.4 access to a BBS meant big, huge bills. I still hate them. I'm so happy they have such a debt mountain now because it shows how pathetic they are as a company when competition comes along.
I too tried signing up to that shambles of an ISP they call Open World. I also got kicked off it in the same month for, get this, leaving the modem connected and not using it. I mean, shock horror! You hear so many stories about BT and you just know them all to be true. They are in a crisis, loosing money hand over foot, dragging their heels over local loops. Christ, we should be putting the boot in NOW.
And hyperlinks? haha, they own the patent do they? Get real schmucks. How desperate is that?
Yeah this is a rant, i fuckin hate this company
When I first started reading about this patent, it sounded very much like France's Minitel, which was sort of like a dedicated terminal for a public BBS. My thoughts were confirmed by the time I got to the last paragraph of the patent in question: "the invention has been described with reference to a specific embodiment", that embodiment being the "VIEWDATA" system named in paragraph 2 of the Description.
Given the specific application of the patent to this public terminal access system, there is no way this patent could apply to hyperlinks or anything else on the Internet.
the owner of the old cable company in Tulsa Oklahoma
used to have ads about how he was 'waiting to make sure
he could provide exactly the best sort of internet access' or whatever. lovely attitude.
I'm so ashamed to be British. This company's held our telecoms and internet infrastructure back years with its retarded monopolistic practices. Last month I got banned from the BT Internet 'Anytime' service for using it too much.
I find it quite ironic that the story is about the infringement of hyperlinks when the submitted and posted story contains nine (all tolled)...
:-)
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
This patent seems very much like gopher--(an early, not as free, precursor to the web). See rfc 1436 Gopher dates to ~1991.
Hypertext content are still just flat text files with bibliographic type references to other documents.
ASP/PHP/Perl/etc muddy the waters a little, but essentially the same is true.
The client is what actually decodes the hypertext links and presents them to the user. Hypertext documents work just fine from FTP servers, windows file servers and your local hard drive, all because of the web browser.
Even if the patent holds any water, there are tens of thousands of ISP's to sue, some of which are very very large, and likely hold a considerable influence to BT's well being. Most software applications now-a-days use hypertext quite extensively. They would also need to be sued. MS would probably have a problem with that and may need to buy BT. There are billions of web pages on the internet, and billions more on intranets. Logistically, there's no way to enforce the patent on content creators or deliverers.
But, there are only so many web browser companies. And many of them are now open source. The best BT could hope for, in my opinion, is a cut of the royalties from web browser sales. With the landscape the way it is, I don't see that being too profitible.
I'm certain there are a few exec's at BT sitting around a table saying 'if we could even get $.01US per link, we would be filthy rich!'
Here's my contribution to the problem :)
http://www.syslog.org
I feel like such a criminal.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
It may also distract attention from the fact that they are busy not supplying broadband Internet.
Why are they not supplying broadband Internet? Thats easy - People would use internet phones to avoid paying the obscenely high phone tariffs we have here, and then they would be even more bankrupt than they already are.
BT is in the same position as a typewriter manufacturer who is delivering word processors as a side line. Of course monkeys on dope could run a better business. No surprise there
I have patent number #010302349328403298, covering a business plan involving legally harrassing people over arbitrary and vague patents which haven't been defended in decades! If BT persues this, I'll be forced to sue!
;-)
All that anyone needs to do if they're sued by BT over hyperlinks is call Ted Nelson, and ask him when he wrote "Literary Machines", and also ask him whether he got the idea of hyperlinks from Vannevar Bush.
The idea dates back to the mid 1950's, so BT is full of it.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I hate the idea of BT getting this, but when it does, maybe US Congress won't want patents to be so bloody easy.
Mind you, they may just crap on "foreign" patents, ratyher than fix their own.
Ah, well
This whole sorry saga remains so ridiculous. What does BT possibly hope to gain from this? The patent is so incredibly vague, and obviously closely related to so many other vague computer concepts both before and after the patent, as to be, IMO, not worth anyone's time or money.
Others have mentioned Englebart (the father of modern software concepts in so many ways) and Ted Nelson, who really started the whole hypertext thing rolling in the late sixties. And anyone writing about hypertext has to acknowledge the grandfather hypertext system, Vannevar Bush's "memex".
How that stuff holds up in court against this particular patent, I don't know.
But in the grand scheme of things, it's stupid.
I guess they just hope to get a few thousand bucks out of Prodigy in court? If thats they're only aim (and it seems like it is), it's pathetic. My esteem of the corporate tech world has sunk to incredible new lows!
VOS/Interreality project: www.interreality.org
now that BT can claim they "invented the internet".
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Anyone have any documention as to when the system was developed?
Business ethics today are measured in profit/revenue terms. I.e. if it costs Bob, Inc. $2,000,000 to honor a contract which returns $1,000,000 and estimated legal and sundry expenses of breaking the contract are $500,000 then Bob, Inc. should break the contract.
This math leaves the value of goodwill and reputation out of the equation, and anyone who know anything about marketing knows that reputation is precious.
I once interviewed with a sleazy outfit called "Systemhouse", which failed to repay my travel expenses for the interview for about three months. After I called up the HR drone who promised that the company would cover my expenses, they sent me half of what I was owed, to the penny! (Of course, I called the bimbo right back, and informed her that if I didn't get paid in full by fedex the following day, I would tell everyone in the whole NeXT community what had happened, and that they would suddenly find it very difficult to recruit anyone with even one year of NeXTSTEP experience, since we all knew each other.)
I later learned, that SystemHouse had some idiotic bean counter very high up in their management (might even have been their CFO, I don't know), who had set a policy of never paying a bill until there was a threat of litigation, and then to send 1/2 of the amount owed, and hope that the claimant would just go away. Sure, it saved them a bunch of money on their payables, but I know that many of their vendors would only do business with them on a cash-in-advance basis. Turns out that some businesses do talk to each other.
It may seem to some short-sighted dweebs that they can make or save money by being unethical, but a business simply can't survive if their customers and vendors can't trust them. (Not unless they inherited IBM's mediocrity franchise, but that's a rather special case.)
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Just drop their packets at your border router. If none of BT's customers can reach anyone on AOL, UUNET, SPRINT, and so on, they'll start bleeding money, and they'll have to sue for peace.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Shit, you mean my BT supplied ADSL modem is just an empty box? Maybe I'm not really replying to a post, as that would involve Internet access.
Hmm. I seem to be in a sarcy mood today. To be fair, there are still a lot of areas with no broadband access, but I believe that circa 60% of the UK population has access (IIRC - don't take that figure as gospel)
Back on topic, when I saw the headline I though it was some sort of wind up. When I followed the link to the story, I just lost all faith in humanity. BT must really be desperate as you said.
The system that is described in that patent, is well MiniTel. MiniTel for those who don't know is a french terminal based service that runs over the phone. The MiniTel unit is a MODEM, with a KEYPAD attached to it with a VISUAL display, and it is used to retrieve information from CENTRAL servers in blocks. Those blocks are downloaded on the terminal and then the display is manipulated by select options on the KEYPAD.
This is very lame, I'd be surprised if BT wasn't countersued for millions, there goes that stock
A few reasons why their claims aren't legit:
1. most people use mice not keypads
2. computers are not terminals
3. lots of people have cable, that doesn't use the telephone line.
4. even if you did manage to claim that modem meant DSL, cable or even ethernet routers, the patent clearly says modem ATTACHED KEYPAD, the keyboard isn't attached to the modem, at least not if it is external
5. mice are not keypads
computers are not terminals, they describe terminals as something with local memory. the definition of a terminal is a device that is used for information retrieval from a central system, and does not have local storage beyond volatile RAM. Computers actually process information locally, the HTML is rendered not retrieved, so the information is really processed at the computer end not the server end, which means that it does NOT fall under the traditional definition of terminal. The fact that is has a hard disk, also places computers outside the definition of a terminal. The only way you could make it stick was if someone was actually telnetting somewhere (as a terminal) then using a browser.
BT are lame, if I was a customer of theirs I'd pull all my business.. but hey.. i'm smarter than a BT customer
There was a law proposed a while back which would make unpatentable anything which merely moved a brick&mortar process into the online world. Things such as shopping carts and referral programs would, in most of their forms, be unpatentable. However, that law did not, AFAIK, pass, and therefore technically a network-ified version of even ancient processes might be patentable.
Even if the "demo" clip from the Stanford professor wasn't prior art, I don't think even a victory against prodigy is going to cause, say, Microsoft, to license the technology, and if M$ can beat the DOJ, they can beat BT in court. And M$ was using hyperlinks in their help system even before the Internet was popularized, so they're double-guilty of the violation.
Does this mean that if I code "*ptr" that I gotta send BT $$$$?
How long was it before nfs, etc came around? ln -s /something/remote /something/local
ls now violates this patent
Linux\UNIX\BSD\etc violating Patents with the most basic commands.
Prodigy is just an ISP
If you can really call it that. They're just a content provider anymore really, everything else is outsourced through at Splitrock and at least one other provider.
Also rumors are floating around this company I have contacts in that does business with Prodigy are that it doesn't have much a future anymore...
And with MS, you left out the most important thing... Their help system was/still is? completely hyperlinked too.
These sorts of suits are a waste of time and money for everyone. There's only so much court time available every year, and people who waste that time while important cases are on waiting lists should have to pay for their gross misuse of social resources.
Last post!
It's so simple. If BT is bankrupt and going after only prodigy, then we must assume this is a conspiresy which may contain many players and parts. I give you the simple breakdown.
BT sueing Prodigy. Just Prodigy, no others mentioned yet.
The case is weak to say the least. More of an annoyance than a threat.
Things like this cost money, on both sides.
If BT is bankrupt, where does their money come from?
Why would they risk spending on such a weak case?
Why Prodigy Only or First?
Who would benefit by Prodigy going down, or even just being tangled in court a bit?
Answering these Questions will show the Puppet Master behind BT's Actions.
Opinions Expressed by Me should be Forced on Others - PbHead
BT is also known for harboring spammers. I've blocked their mail servers after they had their chance to correct the problem, and didn't ... and got mail from their "abuse desk" which convinced me how dumb they are.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
circa (sûrk)
prep. Abbr. c. or ca
In approximately; about: born circa 1900.
[Latin circ, from circum, around (probably on the model of adverbs like intr, within), from circus, circle. See circle.]
I noticed in the article it said they noticed it as part of a routine check. Ok, let me get this straight, they recieved the patent in 1989, and in 2000 were doing this "routine check" and 'oh my gosh' discovered they happened to have a patent for this? First off, how routine is over 10 years, and if their check it more recent than every 10 years, why did they 'discover' their patent before? Obviously the patent they filed was tossed into the back room so to speak, and forgotten about. It looks like someone is just wanting to pick a fight with everyone right now. Obviously they did not expect for their idea to fly, or they would have kept a closer eye on the patent, instead of waiting so long before saying anything. The patent runs out in 2006, and they waited over half the time of the patent to claim their idea.
.
I'm not sure which claim that these folks are asserting to cover browsers, but Claim 1 looks to be the most likely candidate.
Examination of claim 1 would lead one to conclude that the claim is "anticipated" by prior art. That means that the features of the claimed "invention" have been "taught" prior to their claimed date of invention. In this case, they were "taught" by appearing in the disclosure of an earlier patent.
Claim 1 covers a very general computer-based hyperlinking system. The pre-existence of a more-specific system that exactly conforms to those general features (according to the language of the claim) would render the patent invalid.
Take a look at this patent, for example. It covers a specific example that seems to satisfy the requirements of invalidating prior art.
Since a specific example predated their claimed invention date for the general case, Claim 1 of ther patent must be invalid.
A pathetic display by a pathetically poorly run company. Hyperlink my ass.
I don't know anything about Doug Engelbart's demo. But I have Unix v.6 experience. Unix v.6 was issued about 1975.
Let's look at some Unix man pages that contain the SEE-ALSO blocks. These blocks contain the addresses of other information blocks that are accessible via keyboard actions and as such are the prior art to the BT claim.
The only thing to do is to find the Unix v.6 manpage with SEE-ALSO block, preferably as an ancient factory printed manual with the official issue date.
The hyperlink technology is implemented/realized by the browser - they're suing the wrong people. Hopefully the courts will see this and justice will prevail.
OTOH, we could consider this a terrorist attack (this legal threat is causing all sorts of terror in my boss) and send W after them.
Despite the fact that there is both tons of 'prior art' and a very strong case of 'obvious nature' for this particular patent case, I think it would be interesting if BT did manage to win their case. They're hoping to claim massive amounts of royalties from companies who run websites, but I think the real effect would be that the majority of website owners, corporate and private, would simply terminate their websites.
I think that if you kill hyperlinks, you pretty much kill the whole http-based World Wide Web.
Where does that leave us? Well, for starters, it gets a whole lot of companies back *off* the internet, where they don't really belong. I think that the last decade has proven that the e-commerce model doesn't really work when brick-and-mortar sales models are more efficient. There are a few, very specialized business who manage to do business over the internet, but these are almost always in the same area that phone and mail-order business have always dominated. The major auto manufacturers are a good example of companies who don't belong on the internet. The music industry is probably another good case, since they absolutely refuse to embrace the sharing model that the internet and P2P apps have made so popular. They don't want to do business on the internet. They want to use the internet to make their brick-and-mortar businesses more profitable.
So, let's say that all these companies get off the internet. What's left of the internet?
E-Mail, for one. Despite the popularity of the web, E-Mail still accounts for the vast majority of internet traffic. FTP is another. Just because graphical websites go away doesn't mean that we can expect FTP sties to go away as well. FTP sites *after* websites, however, can be expected to have much, much more in the way of content. We can expect 'pub' directories to have much, much more in the way of specialization and indexing. Personal FTP sites would have vast amounts of things the site's owners would like or find interesting. MP3's, images both conventional and pornographic, movies, text files like e-books and fan-works, applications... The list goes on and on.
This model for MP3 sites was *almost* the way things worked. In 1993, there were about an equal number of FTP- and Web-sites. HTML was so much more versatile than an FTP site, so it dominated.
I think we'll also see a resurgance in the use of Usenet, which has been supplanted in many ways by weblogs and online message boards for BBS-type use. We may even see a resurgance in telnet-based BBS's. That would be cool.
The thing I think we'll see the most of if the web magically went away, would be the proliferation of internet sites that use Post-http era technology. This includes any of the P2P protcols like Gnutella or FastTrack, CVS, Freenet, streaming music and video, distributed problem solving like Seti@home and Folding@home, and many, many more.
The web is stagnant already, so this process is already beginning. Just look at the statistic figures for Gnutella or FastTrack to get an idea. I don't think BT will win their lawsuit, and I don't think that the web is going away anytime soon.
I don't think it would necessarily be a bad thing if it did.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
As a submarine patent? As far as I can tell they exploited a loophole to keep the patent alive in the USA well beyond its slated expiration date had it started when it was filed. At best (for BT) it should be invalidated. At worst, countersuits should be filed calling this fraud and harrassment using the legal system. IMHO. IANAL (but I play one on TV.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It took these guys years to realize they had it, and only now are they doing anything about it.
Not that it matters, since we all know their claim is invalid (see 1960's films on this)
AC comments get piped to
At the time of writing, 44 out of 92 visible messages were modded +2 or higher. That's nearly half, which is an extraordinary percentage.
;)
Just a freak combination of people who decided they didn't want to mod and people who decided they wanted to say something, I suppose.
Maybe this message will be modded +5 Funny (hint hint
What's this Submit thingy do?
Hypertext in 1968
(Real Media) Video Clip from 1968 Stanford
Hyperlinking, hidden pages via links, etc. All explicitly demonstrated on this video, dated 1968, 9 years before they filed. That pretty much settles it - BT is full of shit. How could their lawyers have missed this one?
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
The patent was filed in 1980, so shouldn't this patent have expired by now? Granted they may sue for infringement before expiration, but shouldn't everyone be safe for links that were "made" after 2000?
http://www.windmeadow.com/
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Good luck, BT. Hehehehe.
It also lays out a plan for non-crt use via alphanumeric display and keypad. No mention of a mouse.
NEWSFLASH: In addition to the BT courtcase against Prodigy, they also have sued Mikulas Patocka and Distributed Computing Group of the University of Kansas.
BT explained this curious move with "We can't sue Netscape or the Mozilla-group because they use the mouse to navigate with. Actually, most people don't even know why there is a huge plate with funny symbols in front of their monitor. But these two webbrowsers use the keyboard to interact with the user and that's exactly why they are a fine target for our lawyers"
bash$
The only hypothesis I can form is: psychosis.
Or a really good imitation of Don Quixote.
Or perhaps BT is completely unread on the matter. After all, consider HyperCard from Apple. It was considered old hat when it came out, what 12 years ago?
And oh no, it didn't involve hyperlinks, or of course not!
It would seem like BT doesn't really have a leg to stand on. But we'll have to see how the US legal system views this...
Euler got there long before you.
---
2.71828
Who do we apprec-i-ate.
Euler! Euler! Ra!
i just read that patent, and it is just a few
remote document stores, accessed from terminals,
with in index basically. All the rest of the
crap is just describing how it would work at the
time, implemented with the current ( at that time)
technology. No mouse, no pictures. Modems dialing
each location seperatly. They even make a reference to a currently working different
system that sounds more like hyperlinks than
their own device.
They have patented a terminal device here, not
hyperlinks. The terminal just displays links in
the documents.
Big rip. Under their language, it would also be
a violation if i'm watching a tv channel, and
somebody they list whats on some other channel.
Add BT to the list of terrorists...Under the new hacker law we should add them to list, as this attacks the very heart of the net.
FYT
Dmitry Fucking Skylarov.
Imagine to be singled out Jenny McCarthy style for the use of a patent that they have let "slide" for several years before starting this litigation.
.net initiative (which obviously contains hyperlinks), will they go after Microsoft legally?
What I want to know is - who were the other 16 ISPs they supposedly contacted? AOL? @Home? AT&T? And if so, did these other ISPs pay their royalties?
What about Microsoft? With all the XML built into its
No.
Reason - they'd lose. They are trying to go after the ISP that has had a history of losing legal battles. They go after the ISP without the legal resources to combat something like this, set the legal precedent that they need to win against the tougher opposition.
It's pretty sad that they don't have the spine to go after the big fish, but they pry on the small one.
.. and 26000...and....
:)
The strategy probably has more to do with differences between US and British law.
AFAIK, in Britain (and other countries with similar legal systems, Australia, New Zealand, etc.) civil suits have a loser pays system. i.e. you sue someone and lose, you pay for the other sides trial costs.
The idea behind this is to prevent frivilous law suits from clogging up the courts.
In the US no such system exists, all you can do is countersue. I have heard many legal observers around the world state that this is why the US is such a litigious society. You can sue anyone for anything and suffer few repercussions.
Explains the need for shows such as Judge Judy doesn't it!!!
Companies would not abandon the internet. They would force the government to nullify the patent.
We aren't going to go back to the good ol' BBS days.
We're not even going to trade in our SUVs for bicycles and horse-drawn buggys.
IIRC, Apple first employed Hyperlinking commercially on the Mac well over a decade ago.
The article says that the patent was filed for in 1976! That's well over your "decade ago", unfortunately.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
I could have sworn I read or saw something that talked about how the concept of hyperlinking was actually dreamed up back in the '40's. Did anyone else hear about that?
I still can't understand why companies that own patents can select who they want to sue. They should have to take either everyone to the cleaners at once or not at all and lose the right to licensing and just get the satisfaction that they have their name on something important.
BT should have to sue everyone infringing on their patent all at the same time. The way it is at the moment they can choose some company that will probably bend to their will or be happy to come to an agreement and then use that as a proof of case to claim from all others without court. Bummer if you ask me.
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE