xml-dev - British Telecom owns Hyperlink?

[Steve Poirot <poirotsj@gci.net>]

>From the Financial Times:

see www.financialtimes.com..

AFX (UK): BT TO SEEK TO EXERCISE HYPERLINK PATENT IN U.S. THROUGH
                    SCIPHER
                    AFX (UK), Jun 19, 2000, 222 words

                    British Telecommunications PLC has employed Scipher PLC to
exercise a
                    historic patent on hyperlinks, the technology whereby
internet sites cross-link to
                    each other, to U.S. internet service providers, Scipher
said today.

                    Dr Ken Gray, chairman of Scipher, said that BT claims to
have patented the
                    hyperlink technology in doing their work on information
retieval systems, which is
                    used extensively throughout the navigation of the World
Wide Web.

                    He said the patent predates the HTML standard that
currently exists.

                    "On behalf of BT we are attempting to licence (hyperlink
technology), and inviting
                    licences to be taken out by ISPs in the States," Gray said.

                    "We will be inviting ISP's in the U.S. to licence that
technology from us."

                    bge/mjh A British Telecoms spokesman confirmed it seeks to
exercise a patent
                    relating to all hyperlinks used on the internet.

                    He said: "It relates to work done by a predecessor, The
Post Office, which was
                    relating to Viewdata and Prestel both of which predated
HTML, and produced
                    systems online which produced similar characteristics.

                    "This is a BT invention which is now used in hyperlinks -
we have a responsibility
                    to assert our intellectual property, and clearly we're
prepared to work with ISPs to
                    sort things out as quickly and as amicably as possible."

                    He continued: "We're not seeking to deny people the right
to use this stuff; we're
                    only looking for what is fair, which is a reasonable
royalty based on the revenues
                    that others are enjoying by benefiting from our
intellectual property."

                    bge/shw.

                    World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright


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