You have to love the US patent office - a small Texas patent shark picked up patent number 7,065,417 recently, and has filed suit against Apple, Samsung, and Sandisk over their "infringing" players. If judges and juries had brains, this suit would not only backfire, but would cost the bozo company in Texas money. Here's why:

• Date of patent filing: January 29, 2002
• Date of patent award: June 20, 2006
• Date first MP3 player released: late 1998

Heck, the first iPod beat this patent to market. Now, I'm not a high powered patent lawyer, but I can do basic arithmetic: 1998 came before 2002, at least in the copy of the Universe I live in. How did this patent get awarded? Are the people who work in the US PTO hermits who dwell in caves near Everest? The news media reporting on this isn't much better; a few quick Google searches turned up the relevant dates. Exactly how hard are these reporters working?

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