Hyperlink patent holder wants royalties

If you click on the links at the end of this article, you are using the property of British Telecommunications and they want to be paid. The company has owned the rights to hyperlinks for fourteen years and, reportedly, didn't even know it until a routine audit of it's intellectual properties turned up the patent. Because the patent was not granted in the US until 1986, there are still six years of protection available to the company and BT has begun sending notices to Yank ISPs.

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