Sanity nearly breaks out on the worldwide web

By CHRIS BARTON

Three events in the past few weeks gave some hope that sanity is at last arriving in the internet world.

The first was an announcement by the European Union on software patent rules. It contained the bright notion that software must contain new ideas to qualify for patent protection. Plus the sensible proviso that patents would apply only when software is loaded in a machine or operating system, not when it merely sits on a shelf.

The proposed change is in direct conflict with the United States Patent Office, which seems set on granting patents to just about everything just because it is newish in the world of cyberspace. Like the one it gave to Amazon.com for its "one-click" internet shopping system. As many have pointed out, surely that is a business method and not an innovation. Read more about the patently absurd at Internet Patent News and Softwarepatent.com.

The latest in a long line of patent nonsense is British Telecommunication's claim that it owns the patent on hyperlinks - the single-click convenience that take us from website to website. BT reckons it invented the technique. It's got a patent filed in 1976, yonks before the worldwide web existed, which it believes means it should get paid for the daily use of hyperlinks by millions of netizens worldwide.

Fortunately, US judge Colleen McMahon is not impressed with the patent or its wording: "The language is archaic. It's like reading Old English." The case has caused an outrage all over the web - with one Bob Bemer speaking for many when he says: "Technology develops through decades of work by many people. That's why I put my work into the public domain whenever possible."

Though he is not interested in pursuing it, Bob may also have a claim on the hyperlink - as it was he, working as an IBM programmer in 1949, who came up with the "escape sequence". That's something we all use every time we hit the "ESC" key. At its most basic level, it's a command telling a computer to make a shift in its processing - which sounds spookily similar to what happens when you hit a hyperlink.

A stunning turning of the tables brought new hope of sanity in the long running Napster music file sharing case. US District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel - the one who shut down Napster a year ago - has turned her guns on the five major record labels, saying they must actually prove they, not the authors, own thousands of digital music copyrights. The good judge is concerned the record companies "are attempting the near monopolisation of the digital distribution market." Good job - that's what a lot of us were concerned about too when we started using Napster.

The third piece of soundness of mind, also about copyrights, is in the case of Eldred versus Ashcroft.

Eldritch Press a free internet library offering books, poems and essays that are in the public domain is fighting to overturn something mysteriously called the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. It's a United States Act which extended the term of existing and future copyrights by 20 years - something Eldritch and others reckon is unconstitutional because it's keeping thousands of works out of public domain and impinges upon free speech. Believe it or not, the US Congress has extended existing copyright terms 11 times in the past 40 years. In 1790, copyrights lasted 14 years. The Sonny Bono Act extended copyright protection limits from 50 years to 70 years after an author's death and the protection of works-for-hire made by corporations to 95 years. In this digital age I reckon there's a case to be made for radically reducing copyright terms - at least back to how it was in 1790 and maybe even further.

But just when you think mental balance is making a rebirth along comes PayPal to show we haven't learned a thing. When the online payment services company made its initial public offering of 5.4 million shares on the Nasdaq a week ago, the shares opened at $US15.41, got as high as $US22.44 and then settled around $US20. Yes dot com madness has returned - making PayPal's founders, Elon Musk, 30, and Peter Thiel, 34, happy overnight millionaires worth $US143 million and $US56 million, respectively.

Don't get me wrong, I think PayPal is a really good idea - the ability to pay people by e-mail is great. But it's not exactly earth shattering is it? And there are a few other similar payment services out there such as Billpoint.

True, PayPal's revenue of $US40.4 million in the fourth quarter was more than four times the $US8.8 million in revenue it reported in the comparable period of 2000. But it's worth noting it has yet to turn a profit. Far from it actually - reporting an $US18.5 million loss in the last quarter, which is a little better than the $US41.9 million loss a year ago. By Friday there were signs that some reality was returning, with PayPal shares down to $US12.86. But with all we've seen in the last few tech stock wreck years, I reckon that's still insane.

* chris_barton@nzherald.co.nz

Internet Patent News

Softwarepatent.com

Bob Bemer

Eldred versus Ashcroft

Eldritch Press

Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act

PayPal

BillPoint