2/26 Internet Tourbus: Pay Per Click?

[Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: TOURBUS - 26 Feb 02 - PAY PER CLICK?
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 02:13:41 -0500
From: Bob Rankin <bob@RANKIN.ORG>
Reply-To: TOURBUS-Request@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
To: TOURBUS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM

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              TOURBUS Volume 7, Number 52 -- 26 Feb 2002
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          Visit the Tourbus Home Page at
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                TODAY'S TOURBUS TOPIC: PAY PER CLICK?

Can you patent a click?  British Telecom hopes so.  In fact,
they'd like the cash register to ring every time you click
on a web link. Incredible as it sounds, London-based British
Telecom claimed in a US federal court a few days ago that
they own the patent on hyperlinks. BT is suing Internet
Service Providers (ISPs), hoping to extract a licensing fee
that would ultimately result in higher costs for consumers.

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<A href=" http://www.tourbus.com/cgi-bin/goto/129 ";>
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BT's case is based on their hyperlink patent, which was
issued in the US in 1989.  But patent experts predict that
BT will not prevail. Computer scientists and web users
around the world have been busy digging up "prior art", or
proof that hyperlink technology was described as early as
the 1930's and clearly in use before the BT patent was
issued.

Some have traced the idea of hypertext back to Vannevar
Bush, an MIT professor in the 1930s. Others cite British
scientist Ted Nelson, who coined the word "hypertext" in his
1965 book "Literary Machine".  But perhaps the best proof
that hypertext linking was in use before 1989 is film
footage from 1968 showing Stanford computer researcher
Douglas Engelbart (inventor of the computer mouse)
demonstrating his NLS system in which clicking on certain
words causes a new page of text to appear.

   <A
href="http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html";>
   http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html  ;</A>

This 90-minute public multimedia demonstration was the world
debut of the computer mouse, hyperlinking, multiple windows
with flexible view control, and on-screen video
teleconferencing.  It's interesting to note that Englebart
mentions in this film that he's aware of the planned ARPANET
computer network, which was the forerunner of the Internet. 
A year later, Engelbart's computer became one of the first
two computers connected to ARPANET.

But I digress...  Even the judge at the hearing warned that
it may be difficult for BT to prove that their 25-year-old
patent, filed more than a decade before the Web's invention,
somehow applies today. "The language is archaic," Judge
Colleen McMahon said.  She suggested that comparing the 1976
computer described in the patent to today's desktop PCs was
like comparing a dinosaur to a jet plane, and that the
invention at issue "was already outmoded"  by the time it
was patented in the US in 1989.

Attorneys for British Telecom resorted to Clintonesque
tactics, such as arguing over the meaning of words like
"central" and tried to persuade the judge that a computer
mouse could be construed as the "keypad" mentioned in the
patent.  "It has keys," BT lawyer Robert Perry said.

The judge's decision is expected in about a month.  But I
think that British Telecom is in a lose-lose situation. 
Most likely they will be handed an embarassing legal
defeat.  But even if they score a partial victory, the court
of public opinion will find them guilty of an ugly money
grubbing contrivance.

------------------
 RELATED WEBSITES
------------------

The Bustpatents website has an archive of bad
software/Internet patents, and some background information
about why the US Patent Office issues so many dubious
technology patents.

   <A href="http://bustpatents.com";>
   http://bustpatents.com  ;</A>

BountyQuest is a site that pays people for doing the
research to find prior art that will invalidate patent
claims.

   <A href="http://www.bountyquest.com";>
   http://www.bountyquest.com  ;</A>

The United States Patent and Trademark Office:

   <A href="http://www.uspto.gov";>
   http://www.uspto.gov  ;</A>

In Europe, it is the European Patent Office:

   <A href="http://www.european-patent-office.org";>
   http://www.european-patent-office.org  ;</A>


That's all for now.  I'll see you next time!  --Bob Rankin

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