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British Telecom's Hyperlink Claims To Reach U.S. Court 221

Posted by timothy from the wish-it-was-unisys-on-the-other-end dept.
downundarob writes: "Last year, BT said it had discovered that it holds U.S. patent 4,873,662 for the invention of hyperlink technology used on the Internet, and on Dec. 13, 2000, the London-based telecommunication company filed suit in federal court in White Plains, New York. A court date was set Monday in the lawsuit brought by British Telecommunications PLC (BT) against U.S.-based Prodigy Communications Corp. for patent infringement through the ISP's (Internet service provider) unauthorized use of the hyperlink. The full story is here."
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British Telecom's Hyperlink Claims To Reach U.S. Court More

British Telecom's Hyperlink Claims To Reach U.S. Court

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  • Message from British Telecom (Score:4, Funny)

    by Vic ( 6867 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @09:28AM (#2609937) Homepage
    Dear Timothy and the rest of Slashdot/Andover/VA,

    Due to our patent on hyperlinking, and the fact that you hyperlinked to a story about this patent (we noticed many other hyperlinks on your page, as well), we are taking you to court.

    Before settlement is reached, pelase remove all hyperlinks from your web page. Until a royalty settlement is agreed upon, it's tough-titties for you.

    Sincerely,
    B.T.

  • Before you all get started... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ctid ( 449118 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @09:30AM (#2609939) Homepage
    Before you all get started, please don't assume that we brits support this in any way, shape or form. Every self-respecting British geek despises BT for their obstructive approach to broadband internet provision. At every possible stage they have dragged their feet in an effort to keep competitors out. A few years ago their chairman made a speech in which he claimed that the internet was still not "fit for purpose". Of course, the "purpose" he had in mind was making billions for BT. This patent claim is just another attempt by BT to make money with having to compete fairly with other organizations.

    • This patent claim is just another attempt by BT to make money with having to compete fairly with other organizations.

      I presume you meant "to make money withOUT having to compete"

      Sounds like MS. Which reminds me, why would they not have sued MS? Or on the other end of the scale, a really small developer or company, following a tactic against piracy,etc. Then with their legal resources they could say develop a string of legal wins that become more "evidence" in their favor.

      Assuming they are already going to burn in hell, I can only hope they wind up in the version of moslem hell described here [theonion.com]. Even if they are not moslem.

      Besides, wasn't there a bunch of prior art that was found? I hope these guys get laughed out of court.

    • absolutely (from another brit)

    • More "business as usual" from the "Peter Bonfield School" of incompetency. I worked for ICL (the epitomy of waffling incompetence) for eight years and I will never understand why anyone listens to anything Bonfield says, much less why he was knighted etc.

    • BT is also known for harboring spammers. I've blocked their mail servers after they had their chance to correct the problem, and didn't ... and got mail from their "abuse desk" which convinced me how dumb they are.

    • Hey, it's a US patent, so they're mostly to blame since they allowed this stupid patent through. Patent offices are supposed to analyse the validility of the patent application and ensure that no prior art exist (which according to many post further down there is prior art), and that its not a trivial patent. The US patent office is know worldwide doing this very incompetently.
  • Every time I see one of these stories about how much crack our government (and by extension, the rest of us) has been smoking, I hope for a little progress.

    Is the best we can hope for that the court (and the appeals court, and the appeals-appeals court, etc.) will slap some people around and throw out the patent? Can we dare hope that instead we will see some real attention given to our intellectual property system- even to the extent that Skylarov won't be a criminal anymore? This just makes me sick.

  • It seems strange that an organisation that claims to have invented a part of the Internet seems so inept at implementing it. As a bt interent "anytime" customer, I can theoretically dial up at any time, for as long as I want to. In practice, I can spend five minutes at a time attempting to connect; when I eventually do get online, I'm cut off after two hours online.

    BT's rollout of DSL has been nothing short of abysmal - as was its marketing deployment of ISDN before. Indeed, I would argue that BT itself has done a great deal to hold back Britain from becoming a truly "connected" country: the very concept of broadband is alien to many people here, and who can blame them: 40 quid a month for a connection that's a) not really _all_ that fast, and b) will likely be unavailable on a regular basis, if BT's dialup service offers any indications.

    That BT is pursuing this patent is not only laughable: it's also offensive to those of us who have had to put up with their poor service, arrogant behaviour, and general crapness.

  • This could go either way... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by s390 ( 33540 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @09:35AM (#2609944) Homepage
    since hyperlinks are simply the "mechanization" of references. Think of footnotes as prior art here. And what is a list of phone numbers printed in a book, relative to a set of linked email addresses? But one shudders to see the means of most web based communications and commerce subjected to the arcane and so finely split hairs of legaldom.
    • There was a law proposed a while back which would make unpatentable anything which merely moved a brick&mortar process into the online world. Things such as shopping carts and referral programs would, in most of their forms, be unpatentable. However, that law did not, AFAIK, pass, and therefore technically a network-ified version of even ancient processes might be patentable.

      Even if the "demo" clip from the Stanford professor wasn't prior art, I don't think even a victory against prodigy is going to cause, say, Microsoft, to license the technology, and if M$ can beat the DOJ, they can beat BT in court. And M$ was using hyperlinks in their help system even before the Internet was popularized, so they're double-guilty of the violation.
  • I have a feeling that BT has a stake in Prodigy, or some influence over them. Your case can usually be strengthened if others have already caved in to your demands, and I can't see any other reason why the first company picked on would be them.

    Why else choose a company thousands of kms away, and in another country? They _must_ know that Prodigy will cave on this, thereby strengthing their position with the next company they approach.
  • Claim 4: Looks like content-based micropayments were part of the patent as well.

    Claim 5/6/7: Web servers and browsers are also included, and could be forced into RAND licensing situations if this holds up.

    Shouldn't this patent be long expired by now anyway?

  • Prior art ? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by stud9920 ( 236753 )
    Is it me or didn't Arthur C. Clark, also father of the geostationary satellite, describe something that can be seen as hyperlinks, in his novel 2001 A space odyssey, more precisely on the orbital station around the earth ? can't check myself, I lent the book to a friend some years ago.

  • They forgot about the mice... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Knunov ( 158076 ) <eat@my.ass> on Sunday November 25, 2001 @09:44AM (#2609965) Homepage
    From the patent:

    "Informaton for display at a terminal apparatus of a computer is stored in blocks the first part of which contains the information which is actually displayed at the terminal and the second part of which contains information relating to the display and which may be used to influence the display at the time or in response to a keyboard entry signal."

    Throughout the patent, references are made to "keyed digital data", but it never mentions mice, or pointing devices or point-and-click devices, etc.

    So, if there is a literal interpretation, all you need to beat the patent is a mouse.

    Now we just have to get the entire computer world to use these 'mice' things...

    Knunov
    • Throughout the patent, references are made to "keyed digital data", but it never mentions mice

      sorry, but tell me again, what do you call the right and left keys on the little rolling palm-sized keyboard in your right hand? No, I don't mean the huge 102-key stationary qwerty mouse in front of you, I mean the rolling (portable!) keyboard that sits on the little rubbery keyboard-pad off to the right.

      nuff said?

    • Throughout the patent, references are made to "keyed digital data", but it never mentions mice, or pointing devices or point-and-click devices, etc.

      Maybe the followup patent was one for a really large TAB key.

    • What about text based browsers? Lynx follows hyperlinks in response to a "keyboard entry signal", so text based browsers are now in violation of the patent?

      Actually the patent sounds like it's on HTML not just Hyperlinks:
      Informaton for display at a terminal apparatus of a computer is stored in blocks the first part of which contains the information which is actually displayed at the terminal and the second part of which contains information relating to the display and which may be used to influence the display at the time
      Sounds a lot like a markup language, for instance the <body> tag contains a block of information (the text to display) and another block that influences the display (colors, etc). I'm sure there are plenty of other interpretations also. I'm also sure there has to be prior art for this, but the patent was filed in 1980, and HTML was drafted in 1990.
    • So, if there is a literal interpretation, all you need to beat the patent is a mouse.

      Not at all. The abstract defines nothing -- you must study the claims. The claim is the thing. Claim 1, for example, does make reference to a "key pad means", defining it functionally. This form of "means plus function" language is governed by 35 USC s. 112, paragraph 6, which defines the literal scope to include the corresponding portions of the specifications and its equivalents. Thus, a literal construction must consider whether the mouse as used to identify the hyperlink is substantially equivalent to a keypad used for the same purpose. That is, does it perform substantially the same function in substantially the same way to obtain substantially the same result.

      It *IS*, most certainly a useful point for the defense, but hardly a dispositive one. This is particularly true, since the mouse, as of the effective filing date of July 20, 1976 would likely be considered after-invented technology.

  • What about Ted Nelson? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by klund ( 53347 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @09:45AM (#2609968)
    I've got a copy of Ted Nelson's 1974/1987 two-sided book "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" on my desk that includes a section about his "Xanadu Project" which not only talks about hyperlinks, but also micropayments and "Xanadu stands" (basically internet cafes).

    Even if all of the Xanadu stuff was written in 1987 (and it wasn't), wouldn't that be prior art for this 1989 patent?
    • The filing date for the patent was 1980, so work would have to predate that. Luckily Nelson's hyperlink work started in the mid-1960's. By 1989, when this was granted, it was widely known. Except, of course, to the USPTO, and since it's not referenced in the application, presumably to BT either.

    • The patent was granted in 1989 but applied for over 10 years earlier. The patent application seems to have been amended after initial filing so I'm not sure which of the dates listed really counts, but if you're looking for prior art then you need something further back (unless Xanadu was mostly formed by 1974).
      • The patent was granted in 1989 but applied for over 10 years earlier. The patent application seems to have been amended after initial filing so I'm not sure which of the dates listed really counts, but if you're looking for prior art then you need something further back (unless Xanadu was mostly formed by 1974).

        Of course, filing a patent and then amending it to death is the great Lemelson patent-process-exploitation trick. There was an article in Fortune magazine [cognex.com] about it.

        The book "Dream Machines" is a little fuzzy about what-was-written-when... The style of the book is a little disjointed (and it has been heavily revised) but that's not surprising, considering the author (Ted Nelson) coined the word "hypertext" in 1965.

        This link: Ted Nelson and Xanadu [virginia.edu] seems to imply that Ted had fleshed out most of the Xanadu system by 1974. The page talks about "xanalogical storage" (basically hyperlinking), unique-IDs for pages, and the "docuverse," a cool word we don't use often enough.
        • One thing to realize is that by 1987, a hypertext/"docuverse" product was already on the market -- Lotus Notes (which had it's roots in a older centralized system called Plato Notes that dated back to the early 70s).

          However, Lotus was sold to large corporations for 'knowledge management' and it's, uhm, cultural impact was primarily felt there as a project management tool. It never had the social impact that Xanadu promised or the WWW achived, and never gets any credit for envisioning much of the tech that we see now with the WWW.

          History of Notes [notes.net] -- v 1.0 had hyperlinks (or "DocLinks") in 1987.

    • Even if all of the Xanadu stuff was written in 1987 (and it wasn't), wouldn't that be prior art for this 1989 patent?

      No, prior art must be published before the filing date.

      The patent seems to be a "submarine patent": File a patent. Wait several years. Modify and complete the applicacion. If the patent is finally granted, you have a new patent, and no competitor has a chance to avoid infringing your patent, simply because not-yet granted patents are not published in the US. Submarine patents also made it possible to extent the lifetime of a patent beyond 20 years.
    • Even if all of the Xanadu stuff was written in 1987 (and it wasn't), wouldn't that be prior art for this 1989 patent?

      Although the patent issued in 1989, it takes priority from an application filed in 1976. Virtually all modern network uses would fail as prior art.

      Specific dates of publication and the specific text published would be necessary to evaluate this question.

  • BT is a joke... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by class_A ( 324713 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @09:46AM (#2609969)

    BT is seen as a complete joke by many in the UK internet community.

    They dragged their feet over unmetered internet access via dial-up, their network fell over [theregister.co.uk] earlier in the week and they are very reluctant to unbundle the local loop.

    Also, their ADSL package for regualar home users is tied to USB modems and costs £40/month (approx. $56).

    • Also, their ADSL package for regualar home users is tied to USB modems

      Really? I'm getting more and more glad that I went with NTL for a better-than-modem-connection: same price, but at least they let me use an Ethernet card (the connection works perfectly in Linux as well).
      • Also, their ADSL package for regualar home users is tied to USB modems

        I am a BTopenworld subscriber and I am a Linux user.

        A Couple of Points need to be made:

        The cheapest ADSL option is a USB modem, BT also supply Ethernet connections.

        USB was chosen to allow users to install ADSL service without opening up a computer.

        The USB modem is the Alcatel Speedtouch USB. Alcatel supply Linux drivers for this device, and Open Source drivers have been developed by Linux developers.

        I have the USB service and it works a treat through my Linux firewall/router.

    • I think it's worth expanding here your succinct summary.

      They dragged their feet over unmetered internet access via dial-up,

      They've always dragged their feet over any innovation that has potential to stop them screwing over customers. They kept ISDN at exhorbitant prices ($640 installation, $42/month rental plus call charges on top). Ran trial after trial of DSL even though they had it working, fearing cheap unmetered access would cut into their lucrative ISDN scam. Even now my friend using BT DSL tells me that the contention ratio is so high his old 56k used to be often faster.

      I'm very happy with my NTL cable modem, which is faster (BT caps at 512kbps [btopenworld.com] as does NTL [ntl.com] but I get faster downloads and better pings in Counterstrike than my ADSL friends) at half the price.

      their network fell over [theregister.co.uk] earlier in the week and they are very reluctant to unbundle the local loop.

      In case those abroad know little of BT's history: it used to be a national monopoly and the entire country's telecommunication infrastructure was laid at taxpayers expense. Hence in opening the telecoms market to competition it is felt that rival companies should have the same benefits the ex-monopoly has to level the playing field*. Naturally BT are pulling every legal and obstructive trick in the book to frustrate this process.

      Phillip.
      * playing fields are of course not level, otherwise the rain wouldn't run off them and you would get lakes in the middle

  • *cough* (Score:2, Funny)

    by Mathness ( 145187 )
    All you hyperlinks are belong to us.

    Nothing to see here, move along.
  • The communication in the patent itself mentions modems operating over telephone lines of a telephone system.

    That leaves networks that use Ethernet over Cat5, with switches and routers, never touching a phone line or modem, free and clear.
    • and considering that virtually all internet traffic hits a switch or a chunk of cat5 cable, that reasoning there would nullify the entire case.

      that is to say, modems connect to other modems, but nowhere on this modem-to-modem connection does the 'patent violation' (if I say that enough times, I'm going to pass out laughing) occur. The 'patent violation' would occur over some cat5 half the world away, though what happens over cat5 is beyond the scope of the patent.
  • From the article:
    "BT owns what it calls the Hidden Page patent, which was filed in the U.S. in 1976, granted in 1989 and isn't due to expire until 2006"
    Does anyone else think that is an inordinate amount of time between the filing and the granting of the patent? Maybe this is why BT forgot they even owned the patent... Maybe this is why they seem to be acting all pissy about the whole thing?
  • I thought Patents etc. only remained valid when you actively defended them.
    This one was filed in 1977 and just 23 years later BT decides they want to enforce their rights.....

    In '77 they must have figured no-one was going to use hyperlinks for a licence fee so they just kept quiet 'till we couldn't do without them anymore.

  • This is an awfully vague patent if you ask me. Patenting blocks of information which refer to other blocks of information by way of keystrokes sounds an awful lot like they patented a menuing system of some kind or another. Weren't keystroke-driven menus around prior to '89? Oh, you bet they were.

    Given something like-

    1) Display Name
    2) Display Address
    3) Display Phone Number

    Selection:

    Wouldn't pressing '1' essentially violate this patent?

    Menu systems like this have been around since just briefly after day one.

    A better example would be some listed information shown in brevity... say, a filename called "end_of_year_profit_report.txt" and considering that the filename contains data, it could be considered a block of information. In order to get at the second block of information, you more/cat/grep through/etc the file, right? Wouldn't that (as well) technically be a violation of the patent?

  • I just read the patent... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cr@ckwhore ( 165454 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @09:55AM (#2609990) Homepage
    Ijust read the patent, and here are a few observations...

    1. The patent specifically specifies a "telephone network", and use of a modem. (which is why they're not suing the W3C)

    2. The patent specifically states use of a a "terminal aperatus", stating not a "traditional computer terminal".

    It also lays out a plan for non-crt use via alphanumeric display and keypad. No mention of a mouse.

    There are some other vague points in there, but I believe the patent is practically invalid due to the fact that it was built around technology available in 1976. Technology has grown so rapidly that this patent is nearly garbage today.

    • There are some other vague points in there, but I believe the patent is practically invalid due to the fact that it was built around technology available in 1976. Technology has grown so rapidly that this patent is nearly garbage today.

      Bad assumption. Patents by their nature anticipate after-invented embodiments, and do not only cover the literal language of their claims, but also substantial equivalents not foreseen at the time of the application. While doctrine of equivalents claims provide for additional legal defenses, they permit patents broad scope, particularly in the circumstances you describe here.

  • That Does It (Score:4, Funny)

    by miracle69 ( 34841 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @10:00AM (#2610002)
    I'm going down to the Boston Harbor right now and dumping *ALL* of my British bound packets right into the water.

    That'll show them!

  • Prior Art - the mother of all demos (Score:5, Informative)

    by mamahuhu ( 225334 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @10:03AM (#2610008) Journal
    In 1968 Douglas C. Engelbart [stanford.edu] in this demo showed all the things we take for granted now every time we sit down at a computer, use a mobile phone or PDA - hyperlinks are not even half of it.

    There is much more about Doug online here [brown.edu] and a whole lot more on - [google.com]

    Enough said I think.

  • Discovered?? (Score:3, Funny)

    by thesolo ( 131008 ) <slap@fighttheriaa.org> on Sunday November 25, 2001 @10:07AM (#2610018) Homepage
    From the article: "Last year, BT said it had discovered that it holds U.S. patent 4,873,662"

    Why do I have a mental picture of Jed Clampett in my head right now?
    "Look Ma, We done found a hyperlink patent!"
    "Well, Goll-y!"

    Seriously though, you don't just "discover" that you have a patent, you wait until the sucker is approved then try to figure out the most strategic way to get money with it. I am so sick of these patents anymore.
    • Tho I often despise Talk Radio, I was subjected to it out of boredom during the 13 hour drive home yesterday. Something was discussed on one show, sadly I cannot recall station or host, to give due credit, suffice to say this isn't my idea:

      Business ethics today are measured in profit/revenue terms. I.e. if it costs Bob, Inc. $2,000,000 to honor a contract which returns $1,000,000 and estimated legal and sundry expenses of breaking the contract are $500,000 then Bob, Inc. should break the contract. Honor has become a cost, one with zero value to many commercial concerns, thus it is discarded. Doing the "right thing" because it may preserve a business relationship with greater value down the road, or create additional business by reference, is often written off.

      Now consider what BT stands to gain and stands to lose. "Hey, you want to partner with us after you tried to screw us? Fsck off!" But then, maybe there's still enough dumb MBA's out there who cost this out short term and respond, "Ok, sure, where do I sign?"

      Years ago I thought the TQM movement was a way for an overpopulation of business majors to carve out a purpose for their existence. The DotCom failures seem to bear this out, since probably every one of them had Mission or Vision statements. Now it's the overpopulation of lawyers turn.

  • Survival mode (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jdfox ( 74524 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @10:08AM (#2610020)
    Earlier /. discussions on this endearing little scam can be found here [slashdot.org] and here [slashdot.org].

    BT are that desperate for a bit of reliable revenue, as what passes for their management have slammed a company deep into the ground that looked so promising just 10 years ago.

    They are still many billions of pounds in the red, despite issuing the biggest cash call in British history (5.9 billion pounds), some frantic sales of overseas assets, leasing back property, and more recently spinning off their mobile business. There have been angry scenes at emergency shareholder meetings, senior brass quitting in disgrace, etc. So right now they will grab at any readies they can lay their sticky little claws on.

    I wish had enough space to tell you all the times I have been let down by BT on network projects: "sleepy ISDN" syndrome, installation "engineers" who couldn't find the right spot to put in a line despite my drawing big black boxes on the wall in magic-marker labelled "BT install here", etc. So much for the magic wand of privatisation, curing all those horrible nationalised industries.

    Their mgt dug their heels in on ISDN roll-out to protect old business; they are finally being dragged by the regulator out of the same old racket on DSL. They are one of the worst-run businesses I've ever had the misfortune to work with. Starting out as a privatised monopoly with all the assets, skills and R&D firepower of the British govt's old monopoly telecoms service, they have successfully sucked all the value out of what might have made a good private competitor, and I don't expect them to be around in a year's time, at least not under the name BT.

    So go for it lads, hoover it up while you can, and maybe you can cheer the shareholders up enough in the short term to allow you a cushy trip out the door when the buyout happens.

    Am I coming across as bitter here? Sorry.
    • So much for the magic wand of privatisation, curing all those horrible nationalised industries.

      Not at all. Just give it time. The process is supposed to work something like this:

      1) The big state-run monopolies go private
      2) They are just as bad as they ever were, except now
      3a) They can't just drain the treasury for more money and
      3b) Startups can compete with them. This leads to
      4) Small scale startups get a foot in the door
      5) The old state-run idiots finally go under, and
      6) The service they used to provide now comes from a real company.

      I'd say you were somewhere arround step 4.

      -- MarkusQ

      • Give it time? How much? BT were privatised 17 years ago. They were handed a complete stranglehold on the market, via the infrastructure ownership regulations.

        There was never the slightest chance of small-scale startups having a go. And because Britain is not geographically immense like the US, there was no sensible way to divide BT up into "Baby Bells".

        The Milton Friedman thing sounds great on paper, but in practice the "level playing field" seldom materialises, and you simply get the most deep-pocketed competitor crushing its rivals, leading to cartels and oligopolies.

        Your list works up 'til point 3b and 4: these were never meant to happen, so not surprisingly they didn't. BT is about to feel step 5. The "real company" will be some global monster, turning BT into its local UK operation.

        So I declined to participate: I switched to the Phone Cooperative [phonecoop.org.uk]: I save big money off my BT bill, and all the profits go back into the co-op to make it better for us, the members.

        This is not an anomaly: British Rail got far, far worse after Thatcher privatised it. People died in rail crashes because the sub-contractors neglected the maintenance. The track provider has now gone bust, and the train service operators are getting fat while we have the worst train commute-times and road congestion in Europe. Another privatisation success story.

        Blair is now privatising NHS hospitals under his Private Finance Initiative, and just like most of the consultants told him, it's now costing the taxpayer loads more money for loads less service.

        Need any more evidence? Privatisation is a scam, run for the benefit of the corporate contributors to the main political parties. It seldom delivers significantly better value that couldn't have been achieved by fixing what was wrong with the publicly-owned service, and often delivers a lot worse.

        Do you know of any examples of how privatisation has worked out well in the US?
        • There was never the slightest chance of small-scale startups having a go...So I declined to participate: I switched to the Phone Cooperative [phonecoop.org.uk]: I save big money off my BT bill, and all the profits go back into the co-op to make it better for us, the members.

          Looks like you already found your small-scale startup, even though you still don't believe it exists. So I stand by my post; evolution isn't something you can opt out of, even if you're BT. Or MS.

          -- MarkusQ

          • No, you're comparing apples and oranges: there was never a chance of a small-scale startup providing the phone infrastructure. There still is none, and never will be. All the Co-op do is resell phone time on other people's lines. But by going with them, I save the markup that BT would have handed to their shareholders and incompetent, overpaid bosses.

            So I stand by my post: BT has indeed opted out of your supposedly inevitable "evolution", and will shortly be eaten by a larger dinosaur.
  • BT has been on this for a long time, even though a film is available demonstrating the concept back in the late 60's.

    All this is really telling us is that the Stupids have taken over control of Legal Strategies Department at BT. BT must also be pretty hard up for cash to try this sham. This is probably going to cost them court costs, for Prodigy as well, if Prodigy has the brains to countersue.

    As an industry of IP, lawsuit, counter-lawsuit develops we best keep in mind that it may not be lawyers who are responsible (blame it on corporate Get-Rich-Quick schemes, is this what they teach MBA's today?), buy the lawyers seem content to pursue, and in the end always manage to get paid.

    Make lawyers and law firms pay out of their own pockets when they lose, particularly this big expensive corporate suits. That's about the only balance to power and it's a weak one.

    • What we really need is more Albert Einsteins working in the Patent Office!

      Seriously, it's always tempting to blame stuff like this on "stupidity" either from the company or the patent office, but I don't think that's the problem.

      The root of the problem is that corporations have been granted personhood and have enormous resources--more than any person--to defend their rights. No matter how you perfect the guidelines for granting patents, corporations can still abuse them at the expense of the general public, because they have the money to fight things out in court. Even though we all think this patent is absurd, how are the courts going to hear our opinion?

      • Even though we all think this patent is absurd, how are the courts going to hear our opinion?

        Write an Amicus Brief. Your opinion, fact finding, etc. on behalf of Prodigy and file it with the court. Chances are Prodigy knows about this, but it doesn't hurt to toss in your 2 cents.

        I worked at a college years ago and one thing was observed and related to me which I will toss out here. As go the popularity of certain TV shows so go the popularity of people enrolling in such programs in college/university. Right about now I bet there's going to be a boom in people signing up for Law Enforcement, Fire Sciences, EMT and Search and Rescue programs due to 9-11. But as L.A. Law was popular, we had a lot of pre-law (re: poli sci) students. Same trend for St. Elsewhere, and so on. Now, where do you suppose these people fit into the world when they all graduate? Suppose some just carve out their way, pushing IP and IP Protection. (Somehow I have this vision of Jon Lovitz driving a car very fast behind an ambulance in North, old paradigm)

  • Prodigy is just an ISP. Its servers just deliver hyperlinks. Much like Napster only delivered data.

    Surely if you really had a patent on links, wouldn't you go after HTML software companies (Adobe, Macromedia) and browser companies (Microsoft, AOL)??

    Oh no.. BT wouldn't sue Microsoft because even BTs fat pompous ass would get kicked by MS. Why not pick on Prodigy though?

    Either way, BT is a ridiculous company, and this is a ridiculous lawsuit. I mean, come on.. you can get DSL in Yukon, thousands of miles from anywhere, but I can't get DSL 100 miles north of London? Morons.

    They already have a colossal amount of debt. With any luck, they'll lose this case, have to shell out the $$, and hopefully we'll see them go under sometime soon. It happened to Railtrack, an even bigger sham of a privatised company.
    • Prodigy is just an ISP. Its servers just deliver hyperlinks. Much like Napster only delivered data.
      Yeah, and that defense really worked for Napster, right?
  • There are several hundred hyperlinks on the main page alone! And quite a few more on every sub-page. Why, the total must run into the tens of thousands! If they start charging on a per-hyperlink basis, /.'s going to be fucked.

    The /. team should follow Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org]'s excellent example these past few days, and cut back on the hyperlinks. =P

    -Kasreyn

  • Prior art? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Gunfighter ( 1944 )
    If I recall correctly, the last flurry of /. articles on this subject included some information about an old movie or video of someone demonstrating hyperlinks. I think it was dated in the late sixties. What ever happened to that?

    -- Gun

    • I've seen the movie that's most often pointed to as an example of the "birth of the hyperlink" (in multiple segements for easy fun downloading :] ). It's actually very entertaining (well, okay, I am a geek) and extraordinary informative.

      I can't find the link at the moment, but I believe you have the general date right (late 60s). This patent is completely invalid, and I hope BT gets their asses countersued straight off for attempting such bullshit. I'm not a huge fan of Prodigy, but they've definitely got better things to do with their time than defend themselves against idiotic suits.

      Here's the one thing that has me curious: if BT wanted to establish a precedent in U.S. courts for the validity of this patent, why the hell did they choose to sue an national ISP (which has the cash to fight back with decent [is that possible for lawyers?] attorneys? Why not pick a very small online company without deep pockets? I'm not encouraging such behavior, but it only seems to add to BT's idiocy that they'd muck up the "who to sue" question as well...

      Web hosting by geeks, for geeks. Now starting at $4/month (USD)! [trilucid.com]
      If you're gonna email, use the public key!

  • Gasp for air... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jpmorgan ( 517966 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @10:37AM (#2610074) Homepage
    All prodigy needs to do to get out of this is just stall for a year, maybe two. BT won't last that long.

    BT are nearly bankrupt with billions of pounds in debt. How are they trying to deal with this? They sold off their overseas investments, for one. Their profitable overseas investments (as opposed to their highly unprofitable UK phone service). The only thing they've got going for them right now is BT Wireless which brings in huge revenues, primarily because the UK is entirely mobile-phone crazy. Sending text-messages seems to be the national obsession. Of course, they're spinning that off into a seperate company.

    The local loop is bleeding them to death. Is this similar to the cut-throat competition that the North American telecoms have come up against over the past few years? Not likely. BT still charge per minute for local calls, as a rule. The competition is so meek, they're hardly noticable.

    What's the problem then? Incompetance. Both managerial and technical incompetance on a grand scale in every department, at every level. Would anyone be sad to see them go? They've spent years trying to enforce the status quo and crush new technology to maintain their monopoly (you thought Microsoft was bad? Hah!), and bear a significant responsability for the slow uptake of the internet in the UK. No, not many people would be sad to see them go.

    It all comes back to this, though. They're so desperate for cash right now, they'll try anything.

    • Mobile phones went last week, and are now called mm02 or some such crap.
    • While your points about BT going under are all informative, I'm sure that their potential demise will have nothing to do with whether or not they persue this case. If the case could be profitable for BT (which would be their only reason for doing it) then, least of all, someone could purchase the rights to sue when BT goes under. Or they could do it like Be Inc. is doing, where they went under and sold everything except the right to sue MS.
  • I didn't think you could selectiviely inforce a patent. IANAL, but I thought you had to enforce it completely (by reach and agreement with all parties whether or not they pay you anything is irelevant) or you lose your rights to the enforce it. Let's sum up some of the facts.

    1. They filled the patent in 1976, and it was granted in 1989.

    2. They have not sued anyone about this patent till now. The fact they didn't know they had it is irrelevant, they filed for it. Thus, should should have at least kept track of it's status. They really have no claim when they say they just found out the have the patent. It's been 12 years since the patent was granted, and about 25 since they filed for it.

    3. They are only sueing Prodigy, and not MSN, aol, et. al. They are selectively inforcing this patent. Not to mention they are sueing all ISPs, nor are they enforcing it on an individual user or a corporate basis. I am ignoring the fact that sueing on an individual basis all personal, corporate, et. al. websites is stupid--since when has a company not done somethine stupid?

    I really don't think they have much of a case. It's been about 25 years since they filled this and the internet, and especially the world wide web, has taken off since then. It really took off in the early 1990s. They didn't enforce their patent back then, so I don't think they should have the right to do so now. As the saying goes, "you snooze, you lose!". I think British Telecom needs to find another way to squeeze more money into there bottomline.
    • They have not sued anyone about this patent till now. The fact they didn't know they had it is irrelevant, they filed for it. Thus, should should have at least kept track of it's status. They really have no claim when they say they just found out the have the patent. It's been 12 years since the patent was granted, and about 25 since they filed for it.

      By the way, according to the wording of the patent hanging on the wall here, it says, in part, "subject to maintenance fees."

      AFAIK, in order to keep a patent valid, one has to pay the USPTO "maintenance fees" throughout the life of the patent; if not, the patent lapses into invalidity. Therefore, if BT hasn't been paying the fees, their patent is unenforcable.

      Somebody should point this out to them before they look like fools. Oh... too late.

    • for what it's worth, i think you're confusing patent law with trademark law. trademarks need to be actively protected to remain valid, patents and copyrights don't.

    • IANAL, and it's been a long time since I sat through the corporate "intro to patents" seminar, but two of the things I think I remember:

      • Under some circumstances you can lose your patent rights if you don't defend them in a timely fashion. Presumably that's why BT is making a big deal over recently "discovering" that they hold this patent (due to an acquisition?).
      • It's definitely not necessary to sue all infringers at once, so long as the patent holder shows "diligence" in defending their patent. If you sue companyA all the way through, then sue companyB, that counts as "diligence." If you win the first case, the second one goes a lot faster. If you win two, companies fall all over themselves to settle out of court.

      At least that's the way the corporate lawyers explained it...

  • Dr. Vannevar Bush wrote an article entitled As We May Think [theatlantic.com] in July, 1945 that envisioned a linking mechanism in what he called "memex" (a sort of mechanized private file and library). Taken in the abstract, this "system" is analogous to the modern computer and hyperlinking in general. So, wouldn't this qualify as prior art? I would think so, as the patent is essentially an more "modernized" and scaled down version of this already preexisting idea.

  • I find it quite ironic that the story is about the infringement of hyperlinks when the submitted and posted story contains nine (all tolled)...

    :-)
  • This patent seems very much like gopher--(an early, not as free, precursor to the web). See rfc 1436 [ohio-state.edu] Gopher dates to ~1991.
  • Hypertext in its current incarnation is truely is a client side implementation. Web browsers actually perform the 'linking', though the linked address is supplied by the content. Web servers are nothing more than file servers, and do nothing to enhance or restrict hypertext.

    Hypertext content are still just flat text files with bibliographic type references to other documents.

    ASP/PHP/Perl/etc muddy the waters a little, but essentially the same is true.

    The client is what actually decodes the hypertext links and presents them to the user. Hypertext documents work just fine from FTP servers, windows file servers and your local hard drive, all because of the web browser.

    Even if the patent holds any water, there are tens of thousands of ISP's to sue, some of which are very very large, and likely hold a considerable influence to BT's well being. Most software applications now-a-days use hypertext quite extensively. They would also need to be sued. MS would probably have a problem with that and may need to buy BT. There are billions of web pages on the internet, and billions more on intranets. Logistically, there's no way to enforce the patent on content creators or deliverers.

    But, there are only so many web browser companies. And many of them are now open source. The best BT could hope for, in my opinion, is a cut of the royalties from web browser sales. With the landscape the way it is, I don't see that being too profitible.

    I'm certain there are a few exec's at BT sitting around a table saying 'if we could even get $.01US per link, we would be filthy rich!'

    Here's my contribution to the problem :)

    http://www.syslog.org [syslog.org]

    I feel like such a criminal.

  • Maybe this is a good thing. Suppose prodigy caves in and BT thes sues half a dozen US companies. Maybe after that you will be able to explain why indiscriminate software patents are considered harmful in a way that even a US politician can understand.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • This whole sorry saga remains so ridiculous. What does BT possibly hope to gain from this? The patent is so incredibly vague, and obviously closely related to so many other vague computer concepts both before and after the patent, as to be, IMO, not worth anyone's time or money.

    Others have mentioned Englebart (the father of modern software concepts in so many ways) and Ted Nelson [keio.ac.jp], who really started the whole hypertext thing rolling in the late sixties. And anyone writing about hypertext has to acknowledge the grandfather hypertext system, Vannevar Bush's "memex" [theatlantic.com].

    How that stuff holds up in court against this particular patent, I don't know.

    But in the grand scheme of things, it's stupid.

    I guess they just hope to get a few thousand bucks out of Prodigy in court? If thats they're only aim (and it seems like it is), it's pathetic. My esteem of the corporate tech world has sunk to incredible new lows!

  • now that BT can claim they "invented the internet".
  • Anyone remember the Plato [uiuc.edu] system. It was a computerized teaching system developed in the 1970's...that system used hyperlink-link technology to navigate through the various modules. It was cool...didn't last long at the school though, probably partially because I tried to hack in to it and screwed up the machine in the process. I remember me and my friends sneaking back in to school at the end of the day to turn the thing on and play with it...it was that neat.

    Anyone have any documention as to when the system was developed?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Just drop their packets at your border router. If none of BT's customers can reach anyone on AOL, UUNET, SPRINT, and so on, they'll start bleeding money, and they'll have to sue for peace.
      --

      Why do you sue for peace? (I know that is the proper expression, but it is just weird)
      • Why do you sue for peace? (I know that is the proper expression, but it is just weird)

        Because when you sue for peace you're beseeching the person to stop attacking you. When you sue someone in court, you're beseeching the court to help redress your grievance. I think.

  • What if hyperlinks went away? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Sunday November 25, 2001 @01:53PM (#2610615)
    Despite the fact that there is both tons of 'prior art' and a very strong case of 'obvious nature' for this particular patent case, I think it would be interesting if BT did manage to win their case. They're hoping to claim massive amounts of royalties from companies who run websites, but I think the real effect would be that the majority of website owners, corporate and private, would simply terminate their websites.

    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.
  • As a submarine patent? As far as I can tell they exploited a loophole to keep the patent alive in the USA well beyond its slated expiration date had it started when it was filed. At best (for BT) it should be invalidated. At worst, countersuits should be filed calling this fraud and harrassment using the legal system. IMHO. IANAL (but I play one on TV.)
  • If you don't defend them from the first day, you lose right to it.

    It took these guys years to realize they had it, and only now are they doing anything about it.

    Not that it matters, since we all know their claim is invalid (see 1960's films on this)

  • Prior Art (Score:2, Informative)

    by EQ ( 28372 )
    Hypertext in 1968

    (Real Media) Video Clip [stanford.edu] from 1968 Stanford

    Hyperlinking, hidden pages via links, etc. All explicitly demonstrated on this video, dated 1968, 9 years before they filed. That pretty much settles it - BT is full of shit. How could their lawyers have missed this one?

  • history of hypertext (Score:2, Interesting)

    by vscjoe ( 537452 )
    Here is a timeline of hypertext [robotwisdom.com] on the web. The relevant dates are:
    • 1945: Vannevar Bush proposes Memex; ENIAC completed
    • 1963: Doug Engelbart's "A Conceptual Framework"
    • 1968: Englebart's "Augment/NLS" hypertext sys; Brown's HES (Nelson & van Dam)
    • 1972: ZOG development begins at Carnegie Mellon (distributed hypertext)

    It would seem like BT doesn't really have a leg to stand on. But we'll have to see how the US legal system views this...

  • I could have sworn I read or saw something that talked about how the concept of hyperlinking was actually dreamed up back in the '40's. Did anyone else hear about that?

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