✦ LIBER ✦
case Report —: BT HYPERLINK PATENT DISPUTE — DID BT INVENT THE HYPERLINK? OBVIOUSLY NOT AS THE US COURTS HAVE SAID SO
✍ Scribed by Heather Rowe
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2002
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 73 KB
- Volume
- 18
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0267-3649
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
British Telecom (BT) filed what must be one of the more unlikely patent infringement actions to have come before the courts recently. As a result of a routine review of its global patent portfolio, BT made the somewhat serendipitous discovery that it owns an old US patent which, according to BT, covers the concept of hyperlinking. The patent was granted in 1989 and is due to run until 2006. Similar patents were filed around the world, but have all now expired. This article explores the passage of the dispute in the US courts and explains how BT's case came to flounder at the first hurdle.