BT Pushing Hyperlink Patent 458
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.
Very similar to an Onion article... (Score:4, Funny)
Except the for fact that the current article seems to be based in fact.
Techno/Industrial Wars? (Score:4, Funny)
What beef does BT [cdnow.com] have with the group Prodigy [cdnow.com]?
Tagline is hilarious (Score:5, Funny)
'See "internet links" for the text of BT's patent. There is no charge for doing so.'
*snicker*
(-:
God invents hyperlinking (Score:2, Funny)
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)
With any luck... (Score:2, Funny)
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.
Re:Already set to die on arrival (Score:4, Funny)
You, good sir, are a liar! (Score:3, Funny)
Geeks don't have girlfriends. You are at most a technically gifted person, who has a girlfriend.
Time for another tea party... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:BBC Humor... (Score:4, Funny)
The people responsible for the humor have been sacked.
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Al Gore next? (Score:1, Funny)
I'm Confused... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:BBC Humor... (Score:3, Funny)
No llamas have been found to be involved so far.
Sounds like an interesting article (Score:2, Funny)
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.
Re:Not an expert in patent law. (Score:3, Funny)
I couldn't agree more, but try convincing a market (the economic equivilent of the spoiled brat that gets what it wants, no matter how bad it is for itself in the future) of that. Everyone's a little too distracted by the amazing special effects, 500 channels and the 'rewindless VCRs' (DVD players) we've invented! Yay!
That Does It (Score:1, Funny)
That'll show them!
Re:Techno/Industrial Wars? (Score:2, Funny)
I would have to disagree.. I would imagine that Prodigy's past success outshadows that of BT. For instance, consider the industry-changing success of Prodigy's 1997 CD release of Fat of the Land [cdnow.com], which spawned dozens of copycat artists in Europe AND America, to BT's moderate success enjoyed by massive radio play of his y2k single release of Never Gonna Come Back Down [cdnow.com], which IMHO was outdated years before its release.
Personally, I don't think they have a snowballs chance in Hell...
Well I should think not, considering that snowball IS going after The Firestarter!
It would bode lots of companies to rally around Prodigy and give them a hand with legal costs.
Well you have to remember that Prodigy's front man, Keith Flint [skip.to] isn't the most upstanding of a character, and many companies may fear a PR backlash from their supporting him
Even the EFF might be interested in this one.
I don't think that the Electronica Frontier Foundation will get involved in this. They believe, as do I, that there is equal merit in Industrial and Club variants of techno.
I'd love to see them win (Score:2, Funny)
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!
Re: If they win... (Score:3, Funny)
Why mess around with around with FidoNet? Why not just go back to using uucp and start an underground Usenet. Might be fun.
patent THIS! (Score:1, Funny)