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After the iPhone, will Apple try to patent the Personal Coffee Dispenser?

If Apple actually wants a patent for "A computing device... could be a handheld computer, a cell phone, or a media player" it will be almost certainly the last electronics giant on the planet to try building a combined phone and music player.

So far, the fact that it's really old hat to make music players with phones, or wireless, built in, hasn't stopped the world from falling for the Steve Jobs spell yet again.

One sceptical voice seems to stand out: Gordon Finlayson at the Digital Music Weblog. He calls it a "farce" - saying: "this is just one more in a long line of cynical patent registrations by IT companies of fundamentally basic concepts that lack any novelty whatsoever. Can anyone say Walkman phone? Or Windows Mobile? Exactly how long is the US Patent Office going to allow this charade to continue? These guys aren't patenting a cure for cancer - it's an obvious extension of existing technology."

The obvious truth of this hasn't affected the spell. Red Herring trilled: "Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs could be on the verge of revolutionizing both digital music players and the cell phone market if a patent filing revealed on Thursday is any indicator."

Reality check: Steve Jobs already gave his blessing to a combination of iTunes technology and phone, when he announced the Motorola ROKR music phone a year ago. It was described by NewsWireless as a disaster - a diagnosis Wired shared.

• Read "The battle for the soul of the MP3 phone".
• The ROKR is "just another phone"
• The embarrassing ROKR launch story
• Analysis of why Zander also failed to demo a music phone
• The full text of Patent No. 20060268528 can be found on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's web site.

Whatever the patent is for, it cannot be a simple iPod phone. Even the supine American patent office can't be bamboozled into thinking such a thing constitutes "original art" in any sense. Even the unthinking weekend commentators - who can get excited about the idea that the case may be zirconium - can't imagine that this is a technology breakthrough in mobile phones.

If it is, then a cylinder with one end closed off, of ceramic contruction, can be patented as a personal coffee container and dispenser...