BT fails to patent the Web

Back in June, 2000, the company then known as British Telecom exhumed an old patent that, it claimed, covered the hyperlinking used in the World Wide Web - at least, in the United States. Seeing a potential gold mine, the company sent its lawyer squads off to the U.S. to shake down ISPs, all of which, it claimed, were violating this hyperlink patent. Prodigy got the dubious honor of being the first company to be targeted with an infringement suit.

Prodigy, happily, did not choose the "pay them off and hope they go away" response; instead, the company fought the claim in court. And, on August 22, the company was vindicated: U.S. federal Judge Colleen McMahon dismissed the suit outright, ruling that there is no way that a jury could find that infringement had taken place. The company now known as BT has the right to appeal the ruling, but, one way or another, BT looks unlikely to prevail. We can continue to make links without writing checks to BT.

This result is a victory for the Web, but it is a limited victory. The judge has simply determined that this patent, filed in 1980, does not cover the technologies used on the web. Had the patent been written differently, the result could easily have been different. Other patents with claims on fundamental technologies will certainly surface in the coming years, and they will not all be so easily disposed of.

(See also: the text of the judgement, in PDF format).

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