[CPI-UA]: FW: [Random-bits] BT hypertext linking patent (fwd)

From: Russell McOrmond <russell _-at-_ flora.ca>
To: No DMCA in Canada <canada-dmca-opponents (at) flora.org>
Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2002 18:36:25 -0500 (EST)

  Just when you thought it could not get any more idiotic.  I'm not sure 
if this is actually a HOAX or not, but I do remember reading about this 
patent before..

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
 See http://weblog.flora.org/ for announcements, activities, and opinions
 "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise,
  we don't believe in it at all." -- Noam Chomsky

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2002 17:57:32 -0500
From: Michael Gurstein <mgurst@vcn.bc.ca>
Reply-To: cpi-ua@vcn.bc.ca
To: cpi-ua@vcn.bc.ca
Subject: [CPI-UA]: FW: [Random-bits] BT hypertext linking patent



-----Original Message-----
From: random-bits-admin@venice.essential.org
[mailto:random-bits-admin@venice.essential.org]On Behalf Of James Love
Sent: February 8, 2002 1:44 PM
To: random-bits@venice.essential.org;
Hague-jur-commercial-law@venice.essential.org
Subject: [Random-bits] BT hypertext linking patent


http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,50283,00.html

Linking Patent Goes to Court
Reuters

Feb. 7, 2002 PST

 Imagine if one company held the right to collect a fee each time an
Internet user clicked on a website link and jumped to another Web page.

It may sound far-fetched, but a U.S. federal court will hear preliminary
arguments next week to determine if this most elemental of Internet
activities is the business property of a lone company, protected in the form
of a patent.

BT Group Plc believes it holds such a patent covering hypertext links and on
Monday, BT will go to court to try to cash in on it.

Its first target is Prodigy, the oldest online access service, which dates
back to 1984 and is now a unit of SBC Communications, the second largest
U.S. local telephone company.

The former British telecoms monopoly maintains that Prodigy, with its 3.6
million customers, is in violation of a hyperlink patent granted years
before the Internet as it's come to be known even existed.

BT is calling the trial a test case whose outcome will determine whether it
can commercialize a potentially lucrative patent. If successful, BT intends
to go after other American Internet service providers, the lone jurisdiction
governed by the patent.

"We believe we have a duty to protect our intellectual property and we would
expect companies to pay a reasonable royalty based on the revenues that they
have enjoyed through the use of that intellectual property," a BT
spokeswoman said.

The case, which will ultimately determine whether every move on the Internet
can be taxed by a single company, promises to be one of the most closely
watched patent disputes in history.

"It's probably among the Top 10 most controversial patents in the world,"
said Charles Cella, a former patent attorney and co-founder of BountyQuest
Corp., a U.S. startup that monitors patent cases.

"It's a rock star in the patent world," he added. "That's a scary thought."

A preliminary hearing will begin on Monday in the Federal Court for the
Southern District of New York in White Plains, Prodigy's original home town.

For its part, neither Prodigy nor its parent, SBC, will discuss the case.
"We don't comment on pending litigation," said an SBC spokeswoman.

Since the controversial lawsuit became public in late 2000, BT has come
under heavy fire from computer programmers, developers and Web business
executives alike, a group that has traditionally attacked technology patents
of any kind.

Public critics of BT say the notion of hypertext linking was devised decades
before BT developed its own version in the 1970s, for which it was issued
the U.S. patent in 1989.

In a unique display of solidarity, the Internet and legal communities have
used Web message boards over the past year to ferret out claims that "prior
art" for hypertext links exists.

Most cite British scientist Ted Nelson, who ostensibly coined the word
"hypertext" in 1963, using the term in his book Literary Machine in 1965.

A more damning counter argument, they say, may come in the form of grainy,
black and white film footage located on the Stanford University website.

The clip, from 1968, shows Stanford computer researchers demonstrating what
computer experts believe is the first example of hypertext linking. If true,
it could invalidate the BT patent, experts claim.

In the film, lead researcher Douglas Engelbart, the father of the computer
mouse and a local hero in Silicon Valley, demonstrates how by clicking on
certain words in a computer program a new page of text appears.

"It's like gold dust from a prior art point of view," said Ben Goodger, a
senior attorney at London-based intellectual property consultancy Rouse &
Company International. "It's unusual. There is apparently evidence that
someone was doing this long ago."

In a biographical sketch on his website, Engelbart claims to have invented
the first hypertext system in the 1960s, known as NLS (for oN-Line System).

Engelbart's was the second computer connected to the U.S. Defense
Department-sponsored Arpanet, the predecessor to today's Internet.

Finding bullet-proof prior art -- considered the best shot at defending a
patent claim -- is difficult though, experts say.

Cella, for one, questioned whether the Engelbart film would hold up in
court, adding that the heavily indebted BT would be unlikely to head to
court and incur millions of dollars in legal fees if it thought the film
could harm its case.

While the debate over the validity of the patent rages on outside of court,
many in the tech community agree on one thing: heading to court to defend a
claim of ownership on Web surfing is a potentially big public relations
gamble for BT.

"But, on the other hand, one could admire them for having the guts to do it.
If you have it why not use it?" Goodger remarked.



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