One of the stupider patent claims has been struck down. British Telecom’s attempt to charge a U.S. ISP a fee for using hyperlinks was nixed. The judge ruled that the patent may not even cover hyperlinks, saying the backbone of the patent, “BT’s alleged ‘complete address’ — the path name — is by definition incomplete on a network of networks like the Internet.”

Do as we say, not as we do: most of the W3C’s own members’ Web sites aren’t even standard-compliant.