BT Loses Case Over Hyperlink Patent

Tarkie sent in this Bloomberg blurb noting that British Telecom has lost their patent suit against Prodigy over an old patent that BT hoped would cover the use of hyperlinks on the modern WWW. See our original story or check out the court's decision.

Comments

JPEG next...

[philipsblows]

Let's see some similar sanity with the JPEG patent

From the PDF

[scott1853]

BT argues that Prodigy infringes the Sargent patent through its business activities as an
Internet Service Provider. BT contends that Prodigy's web servers provide access to information
in a manner that literally infringes the Sargent patent.

BT also alleges that the Internet infringes the Sargent patent and that Prodigy facilitates
infringement by its subscribers by providing them with access to the Internet. BT contends that
Prodigy contributorily infringes or actively induces the infringement of the Sargent patent by
providing the necessary software and encouraging its subscribers to access pages of information
from Web servers maintained by third parties. Therefore, BT argues, even if Prodigy's servers
do not infringe the Sargent patent as a matter of law, summary judgment should be denied
because Prodigy infringes the '662 patent by making and using infringing remote terminals.

Based on that last paragraph, it sounds like BT was trying to pull a XXAA and declare the whole Internet as illegal.

Re:Lost on SJ

[26199]

True. On the other hand, I've just spent a while reading the judgement... and the following few minutes muttering 'insane, insane, completely insane'. It's crazy.

They lost the case on the kind of picky interpretation of words that, in everyday life, any sane person would just laugh off as irrelevant.

There was absolutely nothing along the lines of, "look, your claim is idiotic, and you know it, now go away."

Maybe that's patent law for you, I don't know. If it is... *shudder*... the sooner this kind of thing stops, the better.

Why they lost

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

I find it interesting that prior art was not mentioned in the decision. Instead, it revolved around the concept of "central computer" in BT's patent vs a large number of computers in the internet. Also interesting was that BT's concept involved a physical pointer (track and sector) to the data rather than a translated, possibly indirect url.

Cynical??

[T-Kir]

Nope, you're not cynical... this is BT we're talking about here.

A company that is universally shafting most of the UK, especially concerning DSL (or lack of). And with a overseeing body called OFTEL (should now be OFCOM, not sure) who are supposed to make sure BT doesn't engage in monopolistic practices (just image what would have happened if they were granted the hyperlink patent!!). But OFTEL don't even have teeth, just gums covered in sponge, and a hand that lighty slaps BT's wrist and says "Bad boy, don't do it again" (for the n'th time).

Re:Lost on SJ

[rgmoore]

There was absolutely nothing along the lines of, "look, your claim is idiotic, and you know it, now go away."

I'm not so sure I'd agree. The judge essentially says that BT's claim is bogus because it refers specifically to a hub and spoke data system (central computer and terminals that are hooked exclusively to it) while the Internet is the exact opposite. Saying (as the judge does):

The Internet, is, in short, an entirely different beast from the system described in the Sargent patent. Consequently, the Internet does not infringe the Sargent patent either literally or under the doctrine of equivalents. Prodigy is therefore entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law.

Sounds very close to "look, your claim is idiotic, and you know it, now go away."

I disagree

[ajs]

I have strong feelings about this case, and I want BT to lose, but I have to say that the judge missed the point that BT was making. The claim that the Internet infringes, not because it has a central computer with centralized data store as described in the patent, but that it is made up of many such arrangements.

This is fundamentally true, though inaccurate (the terms "Internet" and "World Wide Web" are confused here). The World Wide Web's HTTP+HTML elements (certainly what most people think of as "The Web") do infringe the patent on this basis. A Web server provides a central service of delivering data to remote clients. Each Web server provides this function, and thus infringes. The "Internet", does not infringe, and thus Prodigy's ISP business does not infringe, IMH(IANAL)O, but the World Wide Web does. In this way, I think BT should have gone after Microsoft for making IIS, but then they would have had to explain why the didn't go after NCSA back in the days of the NCSA Web server....

Re:I disagree

[cbogart]

It is kind of similar to HTTP/HTML, but the judge
points out that this patent was already defended against a prior art claim, by emphasizing the fact that the links contained not virtual references but actual track/sector numbers; and that the links appeared in a separate section of the file from the main text. Those quirky details were therefore an intregal part of what their patent claims, and they definitely don't apply to HTML.

Re:Patent Status

[bwt]

No, unfortunately it doesn't. On most legal matters, patents included, judges take a restrained approach: they only answer the minimal amount that they have to. In this situation, before you toss out the patent, you have to show that if the patent is valid that the defendent infringed it. Since there is no infringement here, the question of validity does not arise.

JPEG next

[ChaoticLimbs]

Now, if we can get this court for the JPEG issue....

Re:So I'm wondering

[God! Awful]

You know, I could threaten to sue you for absolutely anything at any time. I could even sue you for wrongful death. But if my claim has no merit, the judge is just going to throw it out of court. He might even slap me with a fine for filing a nuisance suit.

We can't refuse to pass laws just because someone might abuse them. We have laws against rape, and they are the source of many false accusations, but it would be ridiculous to legalize rape on this basis. We simply have to make sure that there are fitting penalties for people who make false accusations.

-a

But AOL may infringe

[Animats]

Unlike the Internet, AOL really does have "central computers", located in their big data center in Northern Virginia, and containing all of AOL's "blocks" of proprietary "content", linked by "hyperlinks". So AOL might actually be infringing.

The BT patent comes from a previous generation of technology, which included Ceefax, Prestel, and Minitel. Ceefax and Prestel are dead, but millions of Minitel terminals are still out there; France Telecom uses them instead of phone directories. You can click on the link above and download a Minitel emulator, which allows you to emulate a 16-color block graphics terminal inside a web browser. From there, you can access the telephone directory of France or the Minitel services directory. Most of the services are pay, and at sizable per-minute rates. That sort of fee structure was characteristic of those first-generation systems deployed by telcos.

It's little-known, but Telecom France actually deployed Minitel in the US. There were dial-in ports in all major cities. There were even some English-language services. I had an account for about a year around 1989. International text chat for around $0.06/minute, which was good back then.