BT is suing Prodigy, the first commercial ISP in the US. If BT
wins this test case it could be entitled to enormous damages
against countless businesses in the US.
The US is the only country where BT still holds a patent on its
hyperlink technology. The patent expires in October 2006. Although
it was filed years before the invention of the World Wide Web, BT
will be fighting against arguments that the invention was not
novel. There is black and white film footage of Douglas Englebart,
a Sillicon Valley researcher, seemingly demonstrating the first
example of hypertext linking in 1968.
