Closing tooltips conflict with one another

i made this custom function to close an certain tooltip, and then open a new tooltip

function newTooltip(Name, content1, content2, content3, content4) {
firstTip.hide();
formTip.newTip(Name,  5, 5, content1, content2, content3, content4);
}

The  user runs this function by clicking on a link like this:
<a href="Javascript:newTooltip('whatever', 'content', 'content', 'content',  'content')">Click here</a>

so it does work, the funciton successfully closes the firstTip tooltip
and opens the formTip toolip, however when I mouseout of the new open tooltip which is formTip , it closes!
even though I did not specify for it to close onmouseout, i just simply displayed it, technically it should stay open forever

what's going on and how can I keep formTip from closing automatically onmouseout ???