British Telecommunications' Hyperlinks claim recieves blow.

A victory for common sense !

[gethan]

In what is known as a Markman ruling, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said many of BT's claims that its patent closely mirrors methods common to the Internet were not valid. The Markman ruling is the phase of the trial that is concerned primarily with putting the words of the patent claim into plain English.

[news.com.com...]

And

Reuters [reuters.co.uk]
TheRegister [theregister.co.uk]
Google news [news.google.com]

It dosen't mean that the case is over but strengthens the the defence (Prodigy) and increaces the chances of the case being dismissed.

[Crazy_Fool]

woohoo! looks like Brotherhood of LAN might owe me a beer after all :)

[brotherhood of LAN]

ok ok crazy, so i said i bet a beer on BT winning.

If a US court serves an inadequate ruling you are not getting my more than adequate scottish beer :)

no but seriousy, I took a little time to read the patent, and it does sound like a hyperlink. If someone can argue that the patent is not a hyperlink, what is it for?

[gethan]

> and it does sound like a hyperlink.

Yep, but there were many more articles dating back to the 50's that sound equally or more like hyperlinks... patents are supposed to be for something that is a new invention requiring a novel or inventive step.

[cfel2000]

At last! I was a stupid claim for BT to make anyway. Hyperlinks were in use before their patent.

[grnidone]

For those 'D*mn Yankees' (or otherwise) in the audience, 'BT' is short for 'British Telecommunications', not 'Brett Tabke'.

-G
'D*mn Yankee & Texan' <-- Is that one strike against me or two? ;)