[Diritto] [Fwd: [Patents] Prodigy does not infringe on BT hyperlink patent]

[Stefano Maffulli]

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Finita la pagliacciata del brevetto sugli ipertesti!??!


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From: PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>
To: patents@aful.org
Subject: [Patents] Prodigy does not infringe on BT hyperlink patent
Date: 23 Aug 2002 09:58:21 +0200

According to GregNews, Britisch Telecom failed in court because the judge
interpreted their claims narrowly as referring only to a system in which
all information about URLs is stored on a central computer.

!20020822  Judge dismisses BT's hyperlink lawsuit against Prodigy

On Thursday, the US District Court for the Southern District of New
York dismissed British Telecom's hyperlink patent lawsuit (U.S. patent
4,873,662, inventor is Sargent) against Prodigy. To quote the
introduction:

        "For the reasons stated below, I find that as a matter
        of law, no jury could find that Prodigy infringes the
        Sargent patent, nor that Prodigy contributes to
        infringement of the Sargent patent, nor actively induces
        others to infringe that patent.  I therefore grant
        Prodigy's motion for summary judgment."

...

In their filings, British Telecom argued three main points:

    - each Web server on the Internet is a "central computer" as
      defined in the Sargent patent because each Web server has
      its own centralized data store

    - HTML files qualify as "blocks of information" either literally
      or under the doctrine of equivalents

    - each URL address is a "complete address" within the meaning of
      the Court's construction of the term, either literally or
      under the doctrine of equivalents.

The court disagreed.  On page 12, the court concludes that the
Internet has no "central computer" in the literal sense, which is
true, and that a collection of Web servers is not a "central computer"
under the doctrine of equivalents [page 14], especially because the
patent describes a hub-and-spoke system which a collection of Web
servers usually isn't.  On page 15, the court rules that the phrase
"central computer" is a limiting phrase on the claims asserted,
denying BT the ability to broaden the claims to cover the Internet.

On page 16, the court ruled that the Internet does not contain blocks
of information as required by the Sargent patent (which sends out
information in the form of two blocks of data, one display related,
one data/function related), neither literally (HTML intermixes
everything, and the court earlier ruled that intermixing is part of
the BT patent).  An expert for BT had rigged up some HTML for a Web
page to be more similar to the patent's blocks of information, but the
court ignored that exercise quoting: "A device does not infringe
simply because it is possible to alter it in a way that would satisfy
all the limitations of a patent claim.".  Starting on page 20, the
court also ruled that the doctrine of equivalents can't be used here
as well, partly because during prosecution of their patent, BT
narrowed their claims in light of some patent prior art.  The "blocks
of information" phrase was also a limiting phrase on the claims.

On page 22, the court ruled on the third main aspect, saying that
neither a URL nor the path component of a URL is a "complete address".
A complete address is an absolute memory address in the patent, as
opposed to the relative/virtual addresses that are URLs (which is why
we have things like DNS servers), something which the BT expert
himself admitted in a deposition.  With regards to invoking the
doctrine of equivalents, again BT narrowed the claims during
prosecution to overcome prior art (much like they did for "blocks of
information"), and the court cited Warner Jenkinson to bar BT from
asserting a broader claim interpretation.

The court concluded with:

        In contrast to what BT would have us to believe, there
        are no disputed issues of material fact in this case.
        Instead, the two sides reach vastly different conclusions
        based on the same set of facts.  I find that, as a matter of
        law, no jury could find that Prodigy infringes the Sargent
        patent, whether directly or contributorily, either as part of
        the Internet or on its Web server viewed separate and apart
        for the Internet.  Prodigy's motion for summary judgment is
        therefore granted.

...

--=20
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation	     http://swpat.ffii.org/
120,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/





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