my patent! no, MY patent! no, PRIOR ART! HAH!
This is funny. Engadget has a brief summary of the Apple iPod patent ruckus, the short, short version of which is that Apple's patent was refused because a Microsoft employee had previousy filed for a too-similar patent, but now it turns out that iPods were shipping before the Microsoft patent was filed. What I'm wondering is does this knot (which smacks of one of Milo's Catch-22 setups) mean that the iPod interface can't now be patented, because it has been cited as its own prior art? Or can the Patent Office dereference sufficiently to grant the patent to Apple on the grounds of them owning said prior art prior to the Microsoft application?