Slashdot Mirror
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.
Didn't BT just lose another case?
I wouldn't get too worried about this.
In other words, just because you DO have a patent doesn't mean you should always attempt to enforce it.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
http://www.theonion.com/onion3311/microsoftpatents .html
Except the for fact that the current article seems to be based in fact.
Are they going to go to every U.S.-hosted website and count all the hyperlinks to calculate their royalties?
It also seem strikingly similar to Amazon.com's claim to single-click patent.
It seems noble, yet absurd.
I'm not afraid of falling, it's the sudden stop at the end that frightens me.
The telecom industry is on life support at the moment. Stocks are about as low as they can go (WCOM hit $6.00 a share sometime last week, from a high of $85.00).
they will lose this case and they will probably go bankrupt soon after. Its just a money grab that is doomed to failure.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
The article says "BT is determined to prove that a patent lodged with the US patent office back in 1980". That's 22 years ago. Doesn't that mean it's already expired even if it were valid (which I doubt)?
Is BT Government-run like the BBC or are they a completely private entity?
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
HTML's roots are in SGML, the markup language primarily used by tech writers to create modular documents from multiple sources (ie, a car manual and related sales material would pull from the same source). A hyperlink is a logical extension once you place a markup language in a networked environment - by jumping from page to page you're, in essence, creating a modular "book" just as a tech writer could create a car manual.
Again, there may be some merit, but precious little, IMHO...
What beef does BT have with the group Prodigy?
------
I have not yet begun to procrastinate!
Prodigy?
Why aren't they taking on someone like Adobe ? Or AOL?
This seems like a bully on a playground move
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
I think they should pay attention to whats going on with the file-sharing apps. They take down one and another pops up. How would they ever suspect to enforce this? Along with that, how can you patent a content delivery method like linking? Thats complete bullshit, this is even worse than that company that patented pausing tv 20 years ago. I'm really starting to get sick of this intellectual warfare. I had it explained to me by a upper-level IBM fellowship that pretty much the whole point of IP is have a weapon against your competitor, why else would they patent so many inane things. *sigh*... fuck...
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
The last part of the article:
'See "internet links" for the text of BT's patent. There is no charge for doing so.'
*snicker*
(-:
I'm gonna look for a fossil driver for Linux. Is FidoNet still around?
Best Slashdot Co
Can anybody who works for or near BT management explain exactly what goes on in these poeple's heads?
I mean are BT totally clueless? How could they possibly win such a case... Unless of course they want to run the other company into the ground. Don't you love it when companies stop innovating to compete and instead litigate.
> their lawyers are not afraid to defend their intellectual property
You ideut. Funny how lawyers are not afraid of making sure they're needed to make large sums for large companies.
"Old man yells at systemd"
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
Play with my webcams and lights here
You didn't read the read article which plainly states that Prodigy has video-evidence of a man demonstrating hyperlinking in 1968.
their lawyers are not afraid to defend their intellectual property against scoundrels and freeloaders such as Prodigy
Since when did Prodigy become a freeloader? Perhaps I am mistaken but everything I've seen about them indicates to me that the internet would still be in its infancy if they hadn't struggled to build it.
Slackware forever. Honestly, what else would you trust when it absolutely positively has to be stable, secure, and easy
This is a pathetically stupid way to throw away tax dollars (court costs), and lawyer's fees. There is hardly any doubt that they'll lose this one, it's an idiotic claim! Assuming they win though, we all lose - monetarily. Can you say, price hikes?
Derek Greene
Vatican (Feb 11 2002) - After hearing a lot of reports over various parties claiming to have invented the hyperlink. The Holy se, today delcared the issue closed, by stating that hyperlinking was initially implemented by God almighty (See RFC -1).
God Alimigty, Pope cried, was the definite inventor of what we now regard as the means of travel on the Internet. God, apparently envisoned the need for his slaves to find where they are and where they would go, thus he created what is now known as a pointer (or the index finger).
Furthermore it was also suggested by the Vatican technical commity that God defined the pointer as a pointer to unsigned long. Where long is defined as the number of days (See day definition on first page of bible) the universe would exist.
Copies of this declaration has been sent to the USPO and other such offices.
Please disregard any fake stories of hypertext invention and linking from now on.
Father Amaa Fui (Phd. CS and Deutology)
I once admired the Brits for their loathing of American flakiness. I love America, as a whole, but if I could excise parts, frivolous lawsuits would be first to go.
Anyway, I was working over in Europe and I happened to catch a British commercial...for a personal injury lawyer.
"Did you slip on a tin of Spam at the local market? Was your kid injured during a game of rugby? If so, you may be entitled to damages. For more information, call (whatever)."
(some guy dressed up in a rugby outfit)
"I received £10,000 pounds for (whatever)"
Looked and sounded *exactly* like an American personal injury lawsuit commercial, except the voiceover had a British accent.
They are getting as ridiculous as we are. It's a shame, really. I always admired their stiff upper lip and total hatred for whining.
Things they are a-changin'
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
Actually, BT can also (just about) lay claim to inventing the first electronic computer (when they were the Post Office) at Bletchley Park towards during WWII. Maybe they can tax us for that as well.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
They'll win, then we can all sue them for the time wasted clicking on broken links...
--
Mod -1, I shouldn't be allowed to post when I'm bored.
1968 - includes MOVIES of working links
1965
1940's
And alot more
The list goes on and on. Let them squander their money. To quote a recent game - "If theyre deadset on squandering prescious resources sabotaging their own [] efforts, I say we let em do it."
Along the same vein I cant believe Xerox hasnt made a stink about this. You think they would have learned their lesson after not screaming about the mouse, GUI, etc . . .
...air quotations
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Seems they are looking toward the wrong goat to milk. The ISPs are providing network connectivity. The patent infringement case is about how the network connectivity is used, namely the *application* layer.
They should be going after Microsoft and AOL.
Of course, this will be tied up in court for a very long time, so the chances of BT getting anything out of this, even with a favourable ruling, are nil.
how broad is the BT patent? (and yes, I'm too lazy to search for the answer myself).
Seems to me that the idea of a hyperlink goes beyond just Internet use. Anyone using the <a> element in an intranet webpage might run afoul of this patent as well, as well M$ for the way they link their help files together.
In any event, this seems like a silly legal exercise to me.
-- D
Except when that patent was filed, BT was a government monopoly paid for by the British tax payer.
Yes there were some smart guys there, but taxpayers subsidized this innovation. BT the company shouldn't reap the rewards
Well looks like the US PO wasn't that brilliant even in 1980. This Slashdot article shows MIT demonstrating the idea back on Dec 9 1968.
Given BT's cash problems I think they are trying it just in case they can get some money.
First, notice they are going after Prodigy for using this technology in the early 1980's; that's nearly 20 years ago. For all intents and purposes, BT waived any realistic chance of winning a case given that they've waited this long.
Second, even if a court did uphold BT's claim that they invented the hyperlink, BT would get nothing. Since apparently the technology has been around for decades and is now so pervasive that literally 100's of millions of people use it, a hyperlink is rightfully considered "public knowledge." There would be no way to award damages or collect royalties.
In short, while BT may have a rightful claim to developing the hyperlink, as a practical matter itt means nothing except a note in the history books.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Who here remembers Sun's YP - excuse, me NIS?
"NIS was formerly known as Sun Yellow Pages (YP) but the name Yellow Pages(tm) is a registered trademark in the United Kingdom of British Telecom plc and may not be used without permission."
NIS HOWTOFrom article...
>some argue BT would not have taken the case to >court if it was not convinced it could win.
Hmmm, does this mean that it doesn't have to go to court ? After all, BT...with all its expensive lawyers, is convinced it can win. So what's the point in even trying to defend against it.
Very dodgy point of view...
BT needs to hire a Director of Choosing Your Battles.
Are they going to sue me now?
Do we have to dress up like native americans while we remove them? :)
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
Forgive my typo. "You didn't read the article"
Slackware forever. Honestly, what else would you trust when it absolutely positively has to be stable, secure, and easy
WE INVENTED HYPERLINKING, SHOW US THE MONEY...
Yeah, we found out that we own this patent and we decided to release it for free for the greater good of the community.
OK, so they pursued option 1. They look like the greatest losers and dickheads. Oh yeah; and they'll never see a cent in the first place. They also wouldn't see a cent with option 2 of course, but would be a really geeky and cool carrier (ok, that's a bit of a stretch for our UK readers) instead of complete jerks, that can't distinguish their arses from a hole in the ground.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I thought everybody knew Vannevar Bush invented the concept of hypertext & hyperlinks with the introduction of Memex in 1945. Read the full article here. Maybe someone should mention this to BT before they waste a lot of time with this nonsense?
I remember talking about it the 1980s. His articles could be used as "prior publication".
The obvious thing for Prodigy to do is to call Douglas Englebart as a star witness. You can watch video of a point and click hypertext system he was demoing back in 1968. One place that can be seen is here:
m l
http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.ht
He even demoed a shared display system between two geographically separated terminals. If I was BT and saw Englebart on the defence's witness list, I would sue for peace immediately. 1968 for Pete's sake! Those guys need to be slapped upside the head with a wet mackeral.
However, according to the UK Patent Office, patents are, by nature, vague so such an argument might not prove to be sufficient defence.
Part of BT's patent (see internet links) "If I patented a flying machine the patent could equally apply to helicopters and aeroplanes even though they are completely different," explains Stephen Probert deputy director of the Patent Office.
"It seems ludicrous that a patent for one technology can cover another but patents are anything but precise and are meant to cover things that aren't yet invented," he says.
I don't know what to say--is this guy insane or is that how patents really work? By inventing the hot-air baloon I also invent the airplane, helicopter and spaceship? Patents are meant to cover things that aren't yet invented?!
"I'm not a dork, I'm a geek. Ask my girlfriend."
Geeks don't have girlfriends. You are at most a technically gifted person, who has a girlfriend.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Here are my favorite parts of the article:
"BT stumbled upon the patent during a routine update of its 15,000 global patents in the summer of 2000."
They didn't even know they had it, first of all. Their patent expires in the year 2006 in the US. What happens if you don't defend a patent (I am not a lawyer, I am curious if anything changes if you don't defend a patent)
Plus, this patent is so general. And here is their evidence:
Prodigy's unlikely saviour comes in the form of a fuzzy black and white video which shows a 1968 demonstration by Stanford computer researcher Douglas Engelbart apparently demonstrating hypertext linking.
I would like to see this video... Seriously, though, I think this is going to be a huge PR disaster when this blows up in their face. Not only do they look like desperate bastards, but also like idiots trying to claim a patent like "the flying machine" entitles them to the royalties of airplanes, helicopters, gliders, etc. (Ana analogy the article pointed out.
how low cna you go?
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
The patent contains this definition:
"plural remote terminal means, each including (a) modem means for effecting input/output digital data communication with said central computer means via the telephone lines of a telephone network"
I access web servers via cable, not telephone lines. I expect most servers out there are not connected over "telephone lines" per se (telephone lines used to connect telephones). I wonder if this will be argued.
...They would have a legal obligation to their shareholders to pursue any money just laying on the ground, similar to the AOL/TW vs. Microsoft antitrust going on with netscape. Since this is not the case, maybe BT is beholden to the British Government in a similar way. Or maybe they are helping the cause by showing the U.S. that foreign entities are figuring out how to exploit our own copyright in frivoulus lawsuits.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
In the USPTO they should get rejected as being 'vague and indefinite' if they are to vague. This is a basic patent rejection. So if the language of this patent is to vague to understand today that should be sufficient to invalidate the patent. Boy would that suck for them to be told that the patent is no longer valid and never really was.
Only 'flamers' flame!
You know when you get really bored at work and so you decide to scrape all the finger-cheese off the keys on your keyboard?
I've got a patent on that, I have.
of Douglas C Englebart demonstrating links in Dec 1968 can be found here.
So I can see a government that would force a takeover of the patent even if they win.
Or Maybe everyone would force them to sue first.
I can see the peasants storming the castle now.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
If this passes, I guess you'll see plenty of dead URLs floating in Boston Harbor...
I know this is the case with trademarks, but I don't know what happens in the case of patents.
But if a company does not defend their trademark vigorously, after time they risk loosing it. Good cases are with drugs (tylenol, aspirin), and lots of very common consumer products (kleenex comes to mind, almost happened to coca-cola IIRC).
I think the same thing should hold true with patents: If they're prosecuting Prodigy for hyperlinking in the 80's, good hell, they've waited too long.
-- yawn. --
Good point, but when the government sold off BT, they must have sold all BT's IP rights and patents. Its irritating but there you go.
Not that I believe for 1 second that BT actually invented the hyperlink
I think this tells you how out of touch the patent office is with the intent of patents. A patent on a "flying machine" should be written in such a way that someone of ordinary skill in the art can build one based on the patent. If the patent teaches you how to build a flying machine, you'll know whether you end up with an airplane or a helicopter (the patent may, of course, contain explicit descriptions of both, in which case you'd know as well).
The notion that a patent can teach someone of ordinary skill how to build the patented invention, yet be so vague that it covers all flying machines is ludicrous, and it's symptomatic of what is wrong with the patent office. You get it here in Probert's own words.
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.
One slightly large problem with your arguement. They haven't defended this patent in the almost 22 years since they filed for the patent. If I remember correctly, if you don't defend it, you lose the right to defend it in the future. We've seen some case on Salshdot in which this was proven. It is the companies responsibility to keep track of the patents they own and defend them. I don't see how they can selectively defend a patent 21+ years after they file for it. They not sueing AOL Time Warner. They are not sueing Microsoft. It is took little too late. BT should chalk this up to experience and pay better attention to the patents.
I know they have 15000+ plus, but again it is there responcibility. If they have to create a department to do this, then it is time they do so.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
I seem to recall BT having some problems financially. This is is a really bad sign for them. The presence of lawyers filing cash-grab lawsuits (like this one) is frequently a sign of a desperate or dying company. ;)
Next thing you know Al Gore is gonna start defending a patent that he invented the Internet....
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
The reason BT are going after this is that they are BILLIONS ($40+ I think) in debt and need a way to pay it off. They may well win...be prepared for that. Even if they could only get a few thousand out of ever ISP/web publisher they would make a considerable dent in their debt - hence dont expect this to go away.
From Stephen Probert, deputy director of the UK patent office: "It seems ludicrous that a patent for one technology can cover another but patents are anything but precise and are meant to cover things that aren't yet invented," he says.
The concept of hyperlinking originates with Vannevar Bush in the mid-40's, if not before. For an idea to be patentable, it must be both novel and non-obvious -- hard tests to pass for a concept that has been floating around in the open literature for more than 3 decades.
"It's not a bear, it's a hamster. A really, really large hamster."
I'm cynical enough to think that maybe BT gets Prodigy to settle this for some ridiculously small amount of money ($10, or even $100,000) to make it go away, and both parties aggree, as part of the settlement, to keep the details of the settlement private.
Now BT goes to work for Prodigy trying to go after their competitors. Just like the RAMbus nonsense, the first few get to settle on generous terms. But after that it starts to get expensive even to just settle. Because now BT has precedent on their side. "well look, all these other companies have settled to license our innovative hyperlink technology."
The benefit to Prodigy is: A cheap settlement. The lawsuit goes away. BT goes after their competitors.
The benefit to BT: They establish precedent. They might even get a little trickle of money ($100,000 to settle?). They get really big settlements later from the others who didn't settle early.
If Prodigy settles, what do you want to bet that they keep the terms of the settlement a secret? Now why would they keep something a secret? What possible motivation? Obviously, it must be hugely in their interest to keep it a secret -- because it would be embarrasing to settle for such a small amount, because that would make most people realize the true evil movies of both parties. Gee, could they even agree to this under the table in advance? Okay, I'll agree to let you sue me and settle for cheap with an unlimited nonexclusive license in return. Okay, maybe now I'm being too cynical.
Does this mean that all of the links on the web are going to become <http://slashdot.org> [copy the text between the tags into your browsers address bar and hit enter]??
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
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.
I worked at CompuServe in the mid 80's .GIF, using
(for the guy that invented
a "free" algorithm found in an ACM journal
that later turned out to be patented) and
keep in touch with people over there (CompuServe/AOL) from time to time.
At one point, AOL had retained the ex-Compuserve CTO to do historical research into patentable
things that the company had done. I would lay money that CompuServe/AOL will challenge this
if it goes very far.
I thought Al Gore invented hyperlinking...or was that Microsoft. Now I'm all confused.
eMelody Web Directory add your site today!
Legally it's quite a shrewd manuever to launch the offensive against a smaller target. BT can bully Prodigy and get a settlement, or, if they go to court, they won't be fighting the endless hoardes of lawyers that a company like AOL would throw at it.
Either way, if they win they establish a precedent that will simplify the process as they go after the bigger fish.
BTW - I hear a bunch of lawyers for Rambus are looking for a new "righteous IP cause" to sign on for...
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Hahah! How much more ridiculous can things like this become?
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.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Says a lot about our patent system. Unfortunately, it's all been said many times before.
/Brian
Those who produce html web content follow the html markup guidelines. Markup tags simply indicate structure or meaning to some text on a page. So something like
<a href="http://goatse.cx/"> check out this reference </a> is merely an indicator to a reader or parser. There is no linking inherent in such a markup syntax.
Even web server authors or those using web servers are not infringing since (at least on a very basic level) http servers simply comply to the requests of a browser: give me this page, then that page, and then this next one. Like an ftp server, there is no concept of linking, at least as described by the article.
The only ones I can think of who are implementing hyperlinks are web browser authors. It is the browser that adds semantics to the markup, which it attempts to display on your monitor. It is the browser that actually highlights the linked text, and it is the browser that "connect[s] text, images, and other data on the Internet in such a way as to allow a user to click on a highlighted object on a Web page in order to bring up an associated item contained elsewhere on the Web".
So BT should lose this suit, not just by way of the unwholesomeness of the patent, but also because they're trying to sue a company which isn't even infringing their patent.
You are thinking of trademarks. With trademarks, if you do not vigorously pursue infringing marks, then your trademark is no longer valid.
Patents do not work like this. They do not have to be actively defended to be kept valid. In this case, though, Prodigy has an even earlier prior art video which shows the technology BT is suing Prodigy for using. If the patent system were more effective in finding prior art, this hyperlinking technology patent would've never been awarded to BT in the first place.
Greg
- It's so ridiculous that it should make people think
- It's owned by a non-U.S. corporation. This should make the traditional patent-mongering U.S. corporations think
- It shows exactly why the whole idea of software patents hurts society instead of helping it
So, I wish BT the best in their pursuit of royalties for this one - it can only hasten the end of this whole embarrassingly silly fiasco.Sounds like an interesting article, but I didn't click on the link to read it for fear than I was infringing on somebody's hard earned patent.
First I had use lynx so that I wouldn't inadvertantly see any GIFS, but I suppose now I'll have to find a text-based browser that doesn't show any hyperlinks as well.
Social Contract? I don't remember signing any Social Contract!
The answer is clearly no. (They discovered that they had the patent...)
Please, pretty please, if in the distant future any of you come across someone who was involved in deciding to move ahead with actions like this, whether they are former managers, lawers, etc etc, please, give them a F****NG earful!
It's too bad big companies weren't lead by real leaders. Real leaders would see this for what it is, gang up, and drive BT into the ground.
On the bright side, if things ever do get too bad for programmers...I am sure that it would be possible to get 20000 people to donate a few thousand each to start a patent pool. Not a patent pool for allowing OS/FS software, but a patent death pool to kill off all software development in the entire nation. Just look at the patents being awarded today and patent around them with as much generality and depth as possible, and in a few years noone will be able to move.
:)
:)
The nice thing about patents is that it works both ways. Yes the trolls and extortionists can stop the little guy, but if enough little guys get together, we CAN get enough patents to stop everyone else. No cross-licensing, no licensing period. Just stopping progress. But wait, there's more. Since patents can only be used to stop someone from doing something, and since this plan wouldn't need to be implemented unless software development is impossible, they can't sue you for patent infringement because you already aren't doing anything! (Because as we all know, writing software and getting software patents are two activities with "softare" in their descriptions, but are totally separate things!)
Sure, the courts might throw these patents out, but since patents are given to individual inventors, how can the courts just arbitrarily decide to say that these certain people cannot enforce their patents? Would they say that anyone who got a patent using PDP (Patent Death Pool) money cannot enforce their patent? That wouldn't be very nice. Also, you can stop someone else from using your patented idea, even if you have no intention of using it yourself!
Hopefully, the rest of the world would then ignore software patents and charge ahead as we in the US just stagnate. Then people in the US might wake the fuck up and force Congress to get rid of patents on uses of machines.
But, then again maybe not...but at least the rest of the world would be going on ok.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Hell, I'd expect better from someone with a UID > 20000.
What do you have against low UIDs?
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
BT must have a whole department working out new ways to appear clueless. It would be funny if they weren't crippling the UK's digital infrastructure while they did it.
.404 errors can be connected to eventually. Perhaps they do have some useful technology up their sleeves ;-)
They've delayed the roll-out of DSL for years, and now charge nearly double what a comparative service goes for in the US. And a BBC investigation uncovered their deliberate throttling back of DSL speeds to some customers getting the full benefits of the bandwidth.
My fave recent clueless tip from BT is the useful info nugget that
Between Xanadu and other hyperlinking systems of the 60s and 70s, I can't see this as enforceable. And it's an obvious product of the combination of markup and references (you know, like footnotes). I seem to remember something in patent law that blindingly obvious things can't be patented (don't remember the exact description of this, and too lazy to look it up).
hyperlinks are part of html or sgml. They are not part of http. So what does an ISP have to do with anything? Its the webhosts they should go after since its the web thats the only infringing item. email, FTP, telnet, etc. are all fine. Seems stoopid to sue the ISP, I wonder what they are really trying to do. Think the CEO is selling his company short? he is certainly trying to run its image through the ringer.
Sorry, but I really think that BT has rights to this. Although it does seem somewhat "duh" now, nothing like this was really conceived way back then. And to think that Amazon was granted a patent for their extremely "duh" 1-click idea.. I see that BT's is much more worthy. Go for it BT.
Man this is going to suck for people who like to link a lot.
------
"And may your days be long upon the earth."
"If I patented a flying machine the patent could equally apply to helicopters and aeroplanes even though they are completely different," explains Stephen Probert deputy director of the Patent Office.
Except that if the patent were for "a flying machine," every court in the world would see through it and realize what a farce it was. In the realm of computers, unfortunately, even such broad idea proposals are taken as some kind of intellectual accomplishment.
If they push to get this through, I say we get Al Gore to nail them for using 'his' internet to build their technology without paying licensing fees or royalties.
Oh, and be sure to mod me 'redundant' for this comment, too.
do not read this line twice.
All your Hyperlinks are belong to US !
/satterth
Being called a dork on Slashdot must be like being called the retard in special ed.
...after they're done with Prodigy? Individuals who have web sites or the ISPs that host them?
Since the US patent expires in 2006 and it'll probably be some time after that broadband becomes widely available in the U.S., I guess that most of us that have ever thought about hosting their own web sites will be safe, eh?
BT has been a pain in the keister for a long time. I had the unfortunate experience of having to deal with them about ten years ago when my employer was setting up EDI. They were a pain then and, apparently, haven't gotten any better. Geez, the arrogant comments made by the BT CEO would make me want to switch from them as a supplier even if their service didn't rank near dead last.
Let's hope that what ever judge hears this case, is astute enough to recognize prior art when s/he sees the Englebart tape. And if s/he does, I'd just love to hear the exchange between the judge and the BT lawyers as they try to wangle a case for the originality of their patent claim. Can Prodigy load the gallery with people to snicker and roll their eyes when BT laywers present their arguments?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
at least Despair's patent dispute for emoticons was a joke. I thought we kicked British butt out of our economy a long time ago.
That'll show them!
I forgot to mention.
BT also claim to have invented WAP
cat TheInternet | sed s/http/bthttp/g > TheBTInternet
*bthttp (British Telecom Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is a registered trademark of British Telecom
http://www.club977.com/ - The 80's Channel!
Your source for commercial free 80's music!
Has any one out there used Plato? This was my intoduction to computers in the mid 70's. It had document links just like a hyperlink. I don't think they were called "hyper-links", but the concept was the same.
Come the revolution, the Bourgeois, Capitalistic, "A PARKING STICKER HOLDERS", will be first against the wall!
Back when BT first mooted this (about a year, 2 years? ago) the British Guardian newspaper ran an interview with the BT engineer, now retired, who recommended the idea back in the '80s and, IIRC, wrote up the patent docs. He never made any money out of it, except for a tiny bonus cheque (of the order of about twenty UK pounds) that they gave him.
BT are in a shitload of debt and the managers have been told to screw every last penny out of the consumers.
How do I know?
Because BT made a major cock up with its internet billing over a year ago and gave some customers free internet access.
BT are now trying to claim back money from users who surfed for free, even though BT legaly havent got a leg to stand on.
They are hopeing that customers will just give in and pay money they dont legally have to by being heavy handed. Have a look at this BBC news article for details.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
Along the same vein I cant believe Xerox hasnt made a stink about this. You think they would have learned their lesson after not screaming about the mouse, GUI, etc . . .
Xerox is busy going after Palm (USR) over Graffiti, so it appears that maybe they have learned their lesson.
OK, so the patent looks like total nonsense, and they're probably hoping to bully people into settling, but just think what would happen if the won.
It could pretty much shut down the Web in the USA, or at least severely disrupt it, by forcing people to pay BT tax, or come up with some disgusting work-around.
Of course, this would not apply to most of the rest of the world, because we still haven't quite given into the lobbying of the WTO and USPO types that want the rest of the world to adopt US patent silliness.
So briefly we'd have BT holding the USA to ransom.
Pretty soon after that the public outcry against the USPO might finally reach the ears of enough US politicians, to result in the USPO being beaten up in the manner that they've clearly deserved for years.
The final result being that people would have their eyes opened to the stupidity of allowing patents on software and business methods.
So, join the "BT for Web supremacy" campaign today!
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
Shouldn't that be inane rather than insane? Someone needs to tell BT to stop their bitch-squealing and try to figure out why they hemorrhage money so that they can fix it, rather than blame it on some other company that "stole" their briliant idea. I'm still not convinced that what they patented even was a hyperlink in the manner that it gets used on the net. Besides, doesn't a company have to use a defend a patent early on or they lose the right to scream foul, especially 15 years latter.
BT doesn't even know how to do it right...
You're supposed to go after a small fry evil hacker first, so as to set a precedent.
Instead, BT is going after Prodigy, who is owned by SBC, one of the three remaining "Baby Bells", who certainly has enough ca$h to defend themselves properly.
P.S. No offense to Mr. Corley or 2600 with the "small fry" remark. It referred strictly to company size/resources.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
You owe me $10 for every advice your mom's ever given you. Oh, that's $50 if it was good advice.
Ludicrous :)
There is no such rule. Many patents have already been issued for perpetual motion machines and other stupidities.
All fine and good, except that settlements do not establish precedent. Court _decisions_ do. In any future case, the court will look for similiar case law. If BT is really attempting to establish a precedent that they can use to go after bigger fish, the will _not_ accept a settlement offer, no matter how small or big.
- mark
I thought Al Gore invented the internet!
I'm so confused!
Why mess around with around with FidoNet? Why not just go back to using uucp and start an underground Usenet. Might be fun.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
follow this scheme?
I'd love to see BT prevail, if only for the sheer entertainment value of it. Can you imagine? Maybe this is just the sort of thing that is needed to give patent reform a kick start. But it'd be great fun to see Jeff Bezos have to pay royalties on his one-click hyperlinks. Snicker.
Edith Keeler Must Die
BT don't have a patent on hyperlinks under British law, because, under British law, you can't patent software...
Sensible, that.
"Newsflash: British Telecom to patent 'Electronic' Dewey Decimal system. When asked how this would differ from currently used technology BT's chief technologist said 'It won't'. When asked why this shift in development strategies BT responded: 'After the success we had patenting the hyperlink(tm) we, with advice from our counsel, decided it would be best for our shareholders and consumers alike to agressively pursue similar strategies. We have a whole host of products in development right now taking old world technology and bringing them into the future. These products include the modernization of the book 'index', 'footnotes', and 'bibliography' which will be retroactive to existing products of course. We also have a little known project concerning printed money and how to modernize it. Of course once all the research is done we will agressively pursue anyone using our technology unlicensed. We stand to make billions from the thousands of pounds worth of research we are doing. Even if the courts say we can't 'legally' keep the money from companies we negotiate with, just temporarily having it is enough to boost our stock price to the point where our executive board can sell and retire in luxury.'"
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
its usually called the "Ford Pinto". ;)
Peace, Love, Games
When Unga the caveman first thought about a distant location, then went through the process of going there, he created the hyperlink. Or at least, if he had the foresight to patent it, he could have vaguely worded such a patent to cover all concepts regarding thought and movement.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Played with hypertext for laboratory information systems in the mid-1980s, and for prior art, *I* leaned upon Ted Nelson's ComputerLib/Dream Machines http://www.xanadu.com as well as earlier cites for the mechanical Memex system proposed by Vannevar Bush (not dubya) in work cited in "As We May Think" in the Atlantic Monthly http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/comput er/bushf.htm
;-)
Althought it may be an urban legend, there's supposed to be a patent for playing with a cat with a laser - all things are possible. The patent office hasn't *exactly* had enough cycles to deal with the issue of bona-fide new inventions versus poorly researched claims.
But given a lot of other history, BT is probably safe from worstening its public relations image with this boner
Verizon: Latin for "poor rural service".
But a card catalog can hardly be interpreted as anticipating and teaching hyperlinking. if that were the standard, nothing would ever be patented.
Just curious why everyone is referring to Xerox in the posts about this story.
Engelbart was at SRI. I'm pretty sure Ted Nelson wasn't at Xerox either - he's at Keio University now. And Vannevar Bush was way before PARC's time.
Anyway, just curious.
Never underestimate the power of fiber.
The deputy director of the UK patent office is quoted in the article as saying, "It seems ludicrous that a patent for one technology can cover another but patents are anything but precise and are meant to cover things that aren't yet invented."
Patents are meant to protect useful inventions! Which HAVE been invented! What a sad commentary that this guy has lost sight of the whole idea and has caved, and simply accepts the current state of what patents have *become*.
As I said, offtopic but not quite. A British company is trying to patent salted chips, or fries, as we USAns know it. The group, ActionAid, is trying to point out the stupidity of modern foods patent laws. Their announcement is here.
Fortran programmer...oh yeah. Array math for life!
I'm not surprised that BT is doing this. They are, after all, £8,000,000,000 in debt. As far as they're concerned, they *have* to win this.
If they were at least semi-intelligent, the would have simply claimed they invented it, taken the notoriety for doing so and left it at that. Then they would be in publications left and right, and would have a much happier bit of history associated with their name.
Instead, they're effectively challenging their own claim, looking like bad guys and will surely lose in any reasonable court of law.
who cares if they patent links? i will carry on clicking links, you will carry on clicking links. People will still make browsers, people will still make web-sites with links. Who is going to enforce royalty payment on hyper-linking? I copy CDs, pirate everything in site and click links all day long. No-one is going to arrest me.
Just like the stupid _American_ companies that patent 'rice' or 'breathing air as a hemoglobin transfer function' what do i care? And those farmers who are being sued because patented GM seeds blew onto their land and they didn't kill them in time. Screw patents, screw capitalist pigs who make billions on a couple of ideas. IMHO everyone should get credit for their work, but they shouldn't be able to restrict what other people do with the same ideas.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
With all the BS I've endured lately I needed a good laugh! Thanks BT! :D
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Whatever. Good or bad, this is publicity.
This whole article, the whole court case,
is the biggest example of TROLLING...
never mind Vanevar (sp?) Bush, nor prior art.
So this is what happens when trolls grow up and get knighted...
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I guess you don't remember gopher? Although, in a lot of ways, Gopher + graphics ~= WWW.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Alienation is a personal value, not a business value, and typically doesn't matter in most business situations. There *may* be a place for it in personal relationships tangental to business (ie, salesman/customer).
But I don't think that Microsoft the company is ever alienated. Certain people within Microsoft may allow themselves to be manipulated into feeling this way, but the smart ones remember that the goal is making a profit, and as long as you do well at that personal emotions don't count for much.
I don't see how BT has a prayer. If you look at the specifics of the patent its not about hyperlinking or the Web. If you generalize the patent enough so it covers hyperlinking, it could be describing any remote access to a file system.
To understand what's right and wrong, the lawyers work in shifts ...
- Insane.
No, just a long-shot bet. Look, they already employ the lawyers so it's not a big expense to push this and all they need is ONE out-of-court settlement to set the precedent (think about Toshiba and the faulty floppy drive fiasco or Texas Instruments, I believe, and RSI). And, when one considers the pervasiveness and commercial reliance on hyperlinking today...the financial payoff would be HUGE.Opportunistic? Yes. Repugnant? To the high heavens. Insane -- hey, can't blame them for trying.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
> In the US, as long as it is ion a different industry, and can not be reasonably mistaken for earlier trademark (i.e. not a similiar product, service, or device) you can have previously owned trade mark.
BT considered this, and it was addressed in the argument of fact in the case. Their claim was that since Sun's YP was an online search process (albeit not for phone numbers and such), that it would be confusing if BT ever wanted to put "the Yellow Pages" online.
Virg
I'd much rather that BT won.
It would be such a farcical result that the whole software/business mathod patent mess will be exposed for the shambles that it it is.
Then we can scrap the aforementioned dumb laws and get down to building an information economy built around competition rather than lawsuits....
...is more than we can say about your father. Bummer.
What is your Slash Rating?
our chips (what the americans call fries, but different) are being patented and chip shops will be charged a per-chip royalty.
Ain't it great the way we get all the good ideas from the colonies...
Is it too late to patent the middle finger gesture? ;-)
Frequently-used codes are mnemonic, so that he seldom consults his code book; but when he does, a single tap of a key projects it for his use.
A special button transfers him immediately to the first page of the index. Any given book of his library can thus be called up and consulted with far greater facility than if it were taken from a shelf.
Copyright © 1945 by Vannevar Bush. All rights reserved
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/com
Looking at the text of the Patent itself... for item #5, where they describe terminals as apparatuses for providing access via telephone lines. Doesn't that then negate the "terminals" which don't use telephone lines?
So my PC which uses EtherNet via wireless networking or via Cat-5 cabling which I wired myself is then not inclusive in the patent's description of a "Terminal" and can thus use hyper text linking without stepping on the patent in question.
Or line-of-sight from building to building IR/Laser data transmission which is not provided for or maintained by a Telco and so is not a "telephone line".
As the patent doesn't go into details of what they mean by "telephone line", I think that provides a pretty big hole in their coverage. I can see how it might cover dial-up users, but for other line/wireless/etc users, it becomes exceedingly grey/black.
I do find one interesting thing about the description of the invention in the Abstract:
If anything, I would say that implementing the click-links/HTML/etc protocols has made the operating protocols of the computer even more complex, not any easier.
Pot-Shot-Summary:
What I got out of the patent text was that:
Any terminal/computer/etc connected not through telephony lines is exempt from the Patents.
Any terminal system which does not show the various charges and/or accumulation of charges is exempt from this patent as the patent covers systems which primarily deals with listing charges for services and the accumulation of them.
Guess another question would be: How would BT enforce this? The technology is so prevelant on the web that to remove it all, would not be financially sound to BT itself.
But then again, it doesn't seem like they really care about what people think about them or who they shove out of the way or trample on so long as they get their money.
Though I do wonder... some more text taken from the patents text:
What does it mean that this is a continuation application? And what does it mean when for the child patent when the parent patent has been abandoned?
Hmm...
It's the same thing as if a company would try to claim a patent on street intersections.
If you want to make a left turn or a right turn to change the street you drive on you would need to pay royalties to the roman empire.
Don't mess with other ISPs. Depeer them. Most peering contracts allows ISPs to depeer without reason.
That'll teach them a lesson.
- Baffle
hopefully just crazy enough to force BT completely out of business so i don't have to suffer at the hands of their customer disservice dept any longer.
That was classic intercourse!
and it's on file in the Library of Congress in a copyrighted game that precedes the BT patent.
well, hey, it's as good a claim as theirs, and I did describe it in a rules book I made that is there.
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
While BT may be trying to set up a precedent to collect from other ISPs, this case is NOT about web links.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Come now, Everyone knows that there is no such thing as a flying machine.
Next thing, you are going to try and tell us that the earth is round or that you can split an atom.
Preposterous, I say.
...that's like calling Trent Reznor a pop star.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I would LOVE to boycot BT however this is impossible given the state of phone "competiton" in the UK currently. They are my ISP since they are the only people who offer unmetered acces in my area at all (and thier definition of unmetered is slightly differnt to mine), and to cap it all they suggest I get ASDL instead. The phonelines here never connect at anything more than 28k (we have DAC on the line). To be quite frank they couldnt run a bath tub let alone a phoneline.
This is probably some "initative" by the high-up people in BT to attempt to offset that huge amount of money they lost in shares recently.
Let's all come up with all sorts of interesting information to submit to Slashdot about their websites...the resulting DoS of all those sites getting slashdotted will bring them to their knees!
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
The UK patent has already expired so ISPs in the UK would escape having to pay anything. But in the US, the patent does not expire until 2006.
... and it's reputation across the pond could be equally damaged by this court claim.
:-) (Or was that BBC article written by an American?) I swear, I'm getting worn down; if I see this mistake another 50,000 times or so, I'm going to start getting them mixed up myself.
Just another example of why patents shouldn't have such long expiration times in the US.
Damn, I pretty much accept that no one knows the difference between "its" and "it's" on slashdot. But even the BBC is screwing it up now? Aren't the Brits supposed to be good with the language?
That's a nice site, eh? Whoever built that must have known HTML, including forms.
Evil is the money of root.
Heh. Now if they get their way (which they can't), they can charge for linking to THEIR site, and everyone will rebel against the suits by linking everywhere. They will get so many site hits and ad revenue... Ingenious. (sarcasm)
Fucking Lamerz
Take off every Sig.
I believe that there are some legal rules about not enforcing a patent. Even if the patent is legal, you can't just wait until billions of dollars in payment builds up, and then pounce. It doesn't make sense, and I doubt it is legal.
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
I like the BBC's final comment:
'See "internet links" for the text of BT's patent.
There is no charge for doing so."
They didn't have to add "yet."'
It looks like there are narrow enough technicalities distinguishing web links from the cited prior art that BT may win it. We need such an outrage to make it obvious that the patent system is broken and needs to be reformed. Otherwise instead of having one big outrage lead to doing our something about the problem, we'll keep having our endless parade of slightly smaller outrages screwing up our lives for the rest of eternity.
CNN has it too (here), it is hilarious:
BT tried to persuade the judge to interpret the language broadly for the jury -- to include a computer mouse, for example, as the "keypad" mentioned in the patent.
"It has keys," BT lawyer Robert Perry said hopefully.
LOL =:-)
I've always loved British humor. Guys like Hugh Laurie, John Cleese c.s. and Rowan Atkinson can really make my day. But this is so crazy even Monty Python couldn't have thought of anything like this :) This is what I would call Absolutely Fabulous.
Woefdram, l'apprenti sorcier
It may be just an idea, but wouldn't this be a possible April's Fool's Day (or whatever it's called in English) joke? Suppose they're going to court on April 1st...? Wouldn't surprise me.
Woefdram, l'apprenti sorcier
Well, made pr0n searches on google possible.
Working for the company that invented real time indexing of information I wonder if this means that we should be suing all the search engines out there.....
http://www.dialog.com/
for those bored enough.
It's stuff like this that makes me wonder why companies bother.
I think I'm going to go out and patent triple clicking on a mouse as a process just in case....
Working for the (other) man
In a recent article in The Economist, they are quoted as saying that indeed this sort of thing is a planned new revenue stream. In fact there are now companies whose sole business is finding patents otehr companies have that might make them revenue by suing other companies and forcing them to pay licensing fees...
-- What do you need?
-- Gnus. Lots of Gnus.
There is no copyright on the name escalator anymore. Kleenex is coming close to the same thing. They are common, general terms. Why should it be any different for technology? If something becomes common technology you should not be able to patent after the fact. If it gets to the point where everyone is using it without a patent then what right do you have to go back and say that everyone who has developed and built on unpatented technology can no longer use that technology. You need to protect inventors and innovators to a point to encourage them to create. But letting something become a standard and then patenting it after the fact is wrong. You see many companies doing this today, where once something is accepted they decide that they created it and its only theirs. Then they make everyone pay for what others had developed and spread.
No, it's not an urban legend. It's US patent 5443036.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I am the inventor of the question mark. Pay me royalties, or I'll see you in court.
The enforceable part of a patent is the claims, and the rest of the text is there only to help explain the claims. That's why most patents have quite specific details in the narrative text, but the claims are couched in very general terms.
The claims make no reference to VIEWDATA.
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
Our current form of hyperlink uses free text formatting and there is no blocking involved. We actually have to parse the entire thing to figure out what is displayed and what isn't... A BT hyperlink is structured differently, so their patent doesn't apply to modern HTML code...
Ha!!!
Magius_AR
You're not going back far enough.
Let's see - number of life forms that have won the lottery over the last 65 million years - less than one million.
Number of life forms killed by asteroid impacts - erm well that'd be BILLIONS (and that's UK billions, which is American trillions).
So I'd say that the odds of being killed by an asteroid are considerably higher than those of winning the lottery.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Cheers, tho' it is rather worrying how many people took it so seriously.
--