British Telecommunications claims ownership of hyperlinks Patents6/19/2000; 12:26:01 PM "British Telecommunications (BT) claims it owns the patent to hyperlinks and wants ISPs in the US to cough up hard cash for the privilege of using them. "The monster telco believes a patent filed in 1976 - and granted in 1989 - proves it owns the intellectual property rights to those natty little devices that link Web content together."Read the Patent, filed April 1980.The system described in the patent is a 1970's vintage remote-access terminal, tied to a phone-line (that it uses a phone line is mentioned repeatedly in the patent), and consists of components nobody has today (like some wierd specialized keyboard contraption with 9 or 12 keys, if I'm reading this right). This does not describe the data the system uses (like HTML pages), it does not describe anything a modern ISP user would have, and it certainly isn't a patent on linking, which is a function of data and browsers, not the internet itself. Only a technological ignoramus would think the computer I'm using to type this could fall under the patent.Next question... all the news articles I've seen are claiming that BT thinks it owns hyperlinks. Could these news articles be mistaken in what BT is claiming? The Register did say BT was going after the ISPs, which could imply they are indeed going after those who are providing modem-based services that vaguely resemble the stuff outlined in the patent.Here's the summary of the patent: "This invention relates to an information handling system in which information is derived from a computer at a remote point and transmitted via the public telephone network to terminal apparatus. The invention also includes the terminal apparatus itself."The information handling system as described in the patent does not exist. The terminal apparatus, described in excruciating detail, utterly obsolete, does not exist. That leaves "transmitted via public telephone"... and standing by itself, I'm afraid thats a thoroughly obvious application of the previously-invented device we call a "modem". Could they seriously be going after ISPs for 'using modems to transmit data'?I can't imagine BT will get anything but derision for this announcement... one wonders how much money they're going to burn trying to enforce... whatever the heck it is they think they own.(another take by a Slashdot user... has some points I left out of here for space)