BT Patent fracas

[Julia Schult]

Thanks to ngodava for posting the actual claims and abstract
of the BT patent.  That is the only way to judge the merits
of a patent case.

For the many folks out there who don't know how patent law
works, here's the skivvy:

The claims section of a patent is supposed to describe
EXACTLY what the patent covers.  Therefore it also
establishes by default what is not covered in the patent, so
the language of the claims is all-important.  The invention,
as described in the claims, must be original.  That is,
there cannot be anything sufficiently similar to the
invention published or created prior to the first filing of
the patent (the priority date) or the patent gets thrown out
because the person claiming the patent is not really the
first inventor of the idea.  It doesn't matter if the two
people created it completely independently, what is
important is whether the person who filed for the patent was
the first one chronologically to create the idea.  Anything
published or created before the filing date is called "prior
art".

That's how the Weed Eater guy lost.  After he got the
patent, started manufacturing and selling weed whackers, the
big lawn mower manufacturers gave $$$ to teams of lawyers to
hunt around until they found a French patent from before the
American guy filed for the patent.  They started making and
selling the weed whackers, and when the guy's lawyers went
after them, the big companies just showed them the French
patent, and that was it.  Unenforceable patent, because as
soon as any court saw the French patent, they would throw
out the U.S. patent.

It sounds like this particular case will turn on minute
specifics, like what did Ted Nelson specifically say or
write when he coined the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia"?

The claims on this patent will probably be used for years to
come as training for patent attorneys.  How could they have
written them to cover web links (which hadn't been invented
yet) but still be sufficiently different from the existing
literature on hyperlinks?  It seems obvious now that they
shouldn't have put in that phrase about telephone lines or
telephone systems (because now the patent will be limited to
cover only those systems), but --who knew?

---Julia E. Schult
Access/Electronic Services Librarian
Elmira College
Jschult at elmira.edu