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More on BT Hyperkinks

http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,334956,00.html

Pioneer got £1 for hyperlink discovery

E-finance: special report BT

Neil McIntosh Thursday

June 22, 2000

When the next list of net pioneers graces the pages of an influential, glossy magazine, one name might stand out as rather odd, because 73-year-old Desmond Sargent is no pony-tailed dot.com billionaire, nor is he a tech-talking academic.

But Mr Sargent can, according to US patent 4,873,662, claim to have invented one of the world wide web's building blocks. His work for the Post Office in 1976 led to a crucial breakthrough by creating "hyperlinks" - the technology that allows web users to move from one page to another by clicking on text or pictures.

The patent is now the property of BT, which analysts say will reap hundreds of millions of pounds from Mr Sargent's work."I can't see me making much money out of it - I was an employee of BT at the time," he says. "American law says the chap who writes the patent actually has to have a dollar. So all you get is a dollar.

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