BT Presses Patent Claim on Hyperlinks

BBC News reports British Telecom is pressing forward with their claim that a 1980 patent on an "information handling system and terminal apparatus" (see the USPO page [note: I haven't resolved the numeric domain address and can't verify that it's actually a USPO site].)

On one hand, this seems like a ludicrous patent (Vannevar Bush, Ted Nelson, Doug Englebart, among others, had all proposed early versions of hypertext; BBC links to this Stanford page with a video demo of Englbart's system). On the other hand, patent law isn't currently structured to favor public good except in the form of increasing corporate profit. - goto