BT Patent fracas

[JTB]

I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV!
Er, that is, I'm not a patent attorney, but I work in a library where a lot 
of patent issues are raised. Julia makes a good point in her post. Let me 
just add that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the next 
highest court to the Supreme Court for patent appeals) denied Wang 
Computer's effort to enjoin AOL from using what Wang claimed was 
pioneering  Internet technology. 
See:  http://www.law.emory.edu/fedcircuit/dec99/98-1363.wp.html

At 08:40 AM 06/21/2000 -0700, Julia Schult wrote:

>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

John D. Moore
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Library
202.312.5503
fax 202.786.7015