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BT’s hopes of enforcing its US patent on Internet hyperlinking
(¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ, 1 July, p 17)
may be dashed by an old movie clip. The US-based
Internet Patent News Service is pointing patent lawyers to a website which says
it hosts film of a prior demonstration of hyperlinking
(http://sloan.stanford. edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html).
BT is basing its claim
on a 1976 patent (4873662) that through a legal quirk remains in force until
2006. The 90-minute film was shot by Stanford University in 1968 when Douglas
Englebart showed 1000 people the first mouse—using it to click on
hyperlinks.