Slashdot | BT Loses Case Over Hyperlink Patent
. . . . British Telecom has lost their patent suit against Prodigy over an old patent that BT hoped would cover the use of hyperlinks on the modern WWW.
Read the judge’s decision here.
I’m struck by the similarity of how BT designed their hypertext system with the reminiscences of HyperCard: both came close to predicting or co-evolving with the world wide web but just missed. In HyperCard’s case, it was derived from a box-centric mindset where the network was secondary: the stack, as a complete artifact, made sense, as opposed to the page as Berners-Lee decided.
BT’s system of links referenced the physical data store, down to the sector, rather than just a file reference, as an href does. The reliance on a “central computer” stems directly from a telco mindset: see any article about the ongoing war between the netheads and bellheads for details.
Perhaps that’s the real test of a new idea: if there are several similar versions, the itch they seek to scratch is real. Whether any of them succeed remains to be seen. It may take another wave of innovation to finally get there.