Father of the Web Takes Stand in Patent Case

[WSJ Law Blog]

What could get the inventor of the World Wide Web to testify in a courtroom for the first time? A patent suit that’s perceived as a threat to the modern web, particularly interactive features.

On cross-examination, Tim Berners-Lee, who teaches at MIT and is considered one of the fathers of the Web, was pressed on his opinion of software patents, a subject he’d addressed in print. The plaintiff’s attorney presented segments of a 2004 presentation Berners-Lee gave in Finland, in which he noted U.S. patents created “fear, uncertainty and doubt” and “an incentive for obfuscation,” adding that the U.S. patent office set a “ridiculously low bar” for what constitutes a novel invention.

“I had concerns about the software patent system in the U.S., and this particular patent is key in raising those concerns,” he said, according to Good Morning Silicon Valley.

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