BT Pushing Hyperlink Patent

There's been a lot of new publicity lately about the British Telecom trying to defend a patent that they claim means they invented hyperlinking. Currently they are going after Prodigy for using hyperlinking back in the early eighties. We've mentioned this one before, but it really looks like they are going to push it. Insane.

Comments

Already set to die on arrival

[Ars-Fartsica]

The prevailing talk among the oucrts is that BT is going down a dead-end and no court is particularly interested in pursuing an obvious legal morass. Added to which it is widely known that Xerox has a strong case for prior art.

I wouldn't get too worried about this.

Not an expert in patent law.

[Restil]

However, it would appear that BT only discovered this patent in 2000. Therefore, they made absolutely no effort to enforce it over the last 15 or so year that it was being used by countless companies and organizations, not to mention end users. Even if they're able to extract royalties from this day forward, can they go back retroactively and enforce them on older products as well? Even the GIF patent, which I disagree with, only charged royalties from that day forward, not from the date they obtained the patent.

Can I do this legally? Patent something, hope someone else develops a similar technology, say nothing for 20 years until the patent is about to expire and economies depend on my product, then just raise my hand one day and say, "Excuse me! You have to pay me now".

I know the patent holder can selectively choose to license that patent for no charge and they coudlnt' come back later and change their minds retroactively. What about in this situation, where they've said nothing. Done nothing to enforce it. Didn't even realize they HAD the patent. Its almost as if they were purchasing patents for the sole purpose of hoping one of them would be a huge breadwinner in the future.

However, at least they had an actual product tied to the patent. Its not as bad as the idiot who patented "downloading music off the internet" as an idea with no product to back it up and trying to extort money out of companies as a result.

-Restil

Re:Patent filed in 1980?...

[iainl]

BT are a privatised corporation - they used to be Government owned and run (actually, while the BBC is paid for by a tax they defend their independance fiercely), but were sold off during the 1980s to pay for tax breaks.

As for the whole patent thing, I've no idea when the patent runs out, and I'm not even going near the question of if its defendable. Let the lawyers argue that one out.

that may not be prior art

[markj02]

Those are probably hyperlinks to resources within the same computer. BT may be claiming hyperlinks among resources distributed across a network. That should be an obvious extension, but "obviousness" is a much harder defense against patent infringement than prior art.

Re:that may not be prior art

[crisco]

Your comment should be modded up a bit.

I, probably like many /.'ers, watched a few of those videos and thought something along the lines of "man, those guys were so far ahead of their time, they had everything already done back then! Screw BT and their specious patents!". But go back and watch the demo again. Then scan the patent again. Doublas Engelbart's demo kept referencing hypertext within the same information store (computer). I couldn't find a reference to a local reference to remote information. Networking and even remote sessions are mentioned but never the context of a local link to a remote chunk of data. BT's patent appears to focus on hyperlinking menus being included with each chunk of data to allow easy access to further information.

Now, having said that, there are some key differences between the hyperlinks we know and love today and the system described in BT's patent. Links in the form of http://, ftp://, etc are known as URLs because they abstract away the differences in local and network locations and various protocols used for transmitting the data. It may be argued that hyperlinks are abstractions of a local data store, not a remote menuing system. Also of interest in BT's patent is the reference to the VIEWDATA system, some quick internet searching reveals systems that used color coded links that may qualify as prior art. Another major factor is the use of a mouse. BT's patent doesn't seem to mention anything besides keypad input methods while today's interaction with hypertext is primarily with some sort of pointing device.

Another thing to consider is BT's first major target in this. While other reports mention up to 17 ISPs being asked to pay royalties, Prodigy has gotten the majority of the attention. Wasn't Prodigy one of the larger online services back in the '80s? Might they have had an early interface system that consisted of numeric menus linking to additional information? Is BT going after one of the only true violators of the patent, hoping to scare the rest of the world into paying royalties? Are they deliberately setting up smokescreens, hoping to distract from the real issues in the case?

So, after a closer look, I still think that Mr. Englebart and his peers were way ahead of their time and I still say "Screw BT and their specious patents!", just for slightly different reasons.

specific to keyboards?

[kisrael]

If you read the patent itself (patent office link from the article), or at least the abstract, it specifically mentions "operation of a selected key of the keyboard". (Later on it says "The terminal apparatus may include data entry means, such as a manual keyboard"). Funny if they somehow win, maybe browsers will have to remove keyboard shortcuts, but mouse and trackpad clicking is still A-OK. (And then Amercians with Disabilities Act crew will jump on it...)

But yeah, this is really insane. Also, so many patents like this seem like they don't pass the "not obvious to a practitioner of the field" test.

Re:Harassment as a business model...

[GreyPoopon]

In case you haven't noticed, most people who use the internet couldn't care less about copyright, trademark, patent, or privacy issues.

Of course they don't. But suddenly things like this have a MUCH bigger impact when their ISP sends them a bill that looks like something they might receive from the telephone company, listing every link they've clicked on with its itemized cost. When at the end they have to pay $249 for the month instead of $14.99, they'll really start caring. Not to mention the fact that somebody was invading their privacy and actively tracking their links to pr0n. Yeah, I think PR is going to be a big big issue. If BT loses this, I really hope that our courts issue a rather acid remark about frivilous lawsuits. Maybe somebody at BT will be looking for a new job soon, although not likely.