IP: Re:BT claims rights to hyperlink patent

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

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> Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 17:22:39 -0600
> To: farber () cis upenn edu, ip-sub-1 () majordomo pobox com
> From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat org>
> Subject: Re: IP: Re:BT claims rights to hyperlink patent
>
> Fancy legal arguments aside, there is strong reason to believe that the BT 
> patent is not applicable to the World Wide Web in any case. The patent's 
> claims cover a system in which formatting information and links -- that 
> is, "markup information" -- are transmitted separately from the text of 
> the document.
>
> As any Web desginer knows, HTML (which is based on SGML) mixes these two 
> parts together -- the "tags" which indicate italics, text size, etc. are 
> part of the same transmission as the raw text. For this reason, it appears 
> that the fuss over BT's patent is a false alarm. It is unlikely to cover 
> the Web at all.
>
> --Brett Glass