BT seeks cash from hyperlink users in the US

BT has said it wants US Internet service providers to pay for their customers' rights to use hyperlinks in Web sites, because the British telco claims that it invented them.

In an unusual move, BT has hired intellectual property licensing firm QED, part of UK technology licensing company Scipher, to recover the unpaid licence fees from the hundreds of Web sites that use hyperlinks. A hyperlink is an element of a Web page a user clicks on to access another page or site.

BT said the patent dates back to its early networking days, with its Viewdata online services, including Prestel. The telco said it applied for the patent with the US Patent Office in 1976, but didn't receive it until 1989.

Now the telco wants money from organisations using hyperlinks until the patent expires in 2006. Its patents on hyperlinks in other countries have already expired.

A BT spokesman said getting fees from everyone in the US using hyperlinks would be impossible. "It's not practical to licence every Internet user - it would be nonsensical, so we're approaching ISPs to talk about licensing," said the spokesman. He confirmed that BT was seeking money from the ISPs.

"We only want what is fair," the spokesman said, citing the high patent licence fees enjoyed by other major technology companies. IBM receives over $1bn a year from licencees of its intellectual property.

Hyperlinks are used extensively across the Internet and BT's mission is going to prove difficult to implement.

Tim Pearson, a council member of the ISP Association in the UK, said patent laws are outdated. "It doesn't surprise me that this is crawling out of the woodwork because we've seen a general increase in the aggressive use of patents," he said.

Pearson said BT should pursue Web site owners, rather than ISPs who, he said, are only responsible for hosting content, rather than creating it. "I don't think BT will win itself many friends though," he added.

See also:

BT begins legal action on hyperlink patent

BT has begun its battle to recover licence fees from internet service providers, six months after first claiming to own a patent on the technology behind hyperlinks.  18 Dec 2000

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Franck Jeannin, the French chief executive of LinkGuard, a Maidenhead-based company that manages web links, talks about life in the UK, patents and the firm's new deal with Dell.  30 Nov 2000

OpenTV joins Amazon patent battle

Interactive TV software vendor OpenTV has marched into a long running patent battle between Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble over one-click shopping, claiming that it was the first to patent the technology.  05 Oct 2000

BT challenged over hyperlink patent

BT's attempt to enforce a patent on internet hyperlinks has been thrown into fresh doubt by video footage of a 1968 research project.  02 Oct 2000

Ebusiness patent mocks US system

The US patent system was branded a joke this week after it was revealed that a fashion designer made an undisclosed sum from clothing websites with a general ebusiness system and method for fashion shopping.  07 Sep 2000

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