Judge Narrows Wording of British Telecom Claim

An initial ruling by a U.S. judge has narrowed what British Telecom can say to prove its claim to have invented hyperlinking, in a high-profile case that could give BT rights to demand royalties on Internet use.

Judge Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an opinion last week that only partially accepted the wording of BT arguments that its 1970s patent should cover modern Internet linking methods.

The judge cast doubt on the relevance of some of the patent’s concepts to the decentralized network of computers now called the Internet, in an interpretation of arcane computing concepts that could be decisive in a jury trial.

BT’s first target is Prodigy, the oldest online access service, which is now a unit of SBC Communications Inc. If the bid is successful, BT has said it is ready to try to force other U.S. Internet access providers to pay royalties on behalf of millions of subscribers.