Venerable Monks,

In the "I can't believe they granted a patent on that" file, someone patented using JavaScript's onmouseover event to provide a preview image of the hyperlink destination. Really. They're now going around suing everyone who implements this fairly simple idea.

I know Thumbshots has been doing this for years; unfortunately, the original patent application was filed in December 1999. So I'd like to find some evidence of onmouseover preview images in 1999 or before to make the "inventors" shut up and go away.

Eric Bosrup has been publishing the overLIB library since 1998. Does anyone know of an instance where someone used it to preview hyperlinks? Alternately, are there any examples of a preview image in an old JavaScript cookbook?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

-Ton

Update: For anyone else who may have to deal with these guys, I thought I'd post a couple nice leads.

• A May 1999 presentation at www8.
• An IBM patent filed in July 1999.

I'll post additional leads as I find them. Thanks again!