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Prior Art for Hyperlink Order Tracking in Email?

Posted by Cliff on from the the-'many-eyes'-concept-on-something-other-than-code dept.

Davesbud asks: "I'm trying to invalidate a patent that claims to have invented 'placing a hyperlink in an email which in turn provides the recipient with order status or tracking information.' I am searching for any web pages, articles, newsgroup/forum discussions, brochures or the like, published before December of 1997, that describes this idea. You've seen this if you've ordered almost anything online or shipped by FedEx or UPS. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks."

2 of 44 comments (clear)

  1. What constitues prior art? by jtheory · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This is answering a question with a question... but how public does a work need to be in order to constitute prior art?

    I can't help with this one, but there've been a few /. discussions before where I was using the patented process, but only within an academic environment, or on a company intranet.

    --
    There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
  2. Links or URLs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    You can't include a link in a plaintext email. Some mail readers turn URLs into links, but the message itself doesn't contain links. This might let you sidestep the issue entirely.

    You can include links if you're using HTML mail, so the patent would still be a problem in that case.