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."

Comments

Prior Art - the mother of all demos

[mamahuhu]

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.

Re:What about Ted Nelson?

[tlk nnr]

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?

No, prior art must be published before the filing date.

The patent seems to be a "submarine patent": File a patent. Wait several years. Modify and complete the applicacion. If the patent is finally granted, you have a new patent, and no competitor has a chance to avoid infringing your patent, simply because not-yet granted patents are not published in the US. Submarine patents also made it possible to extent the lifetime of a patent beyond 20 years.

Prior Art

[EQ]

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?