Yes, these keypads have been in use for at least 10 years. You press a button to activate the keypad, and it randomly places the digits onto the pad so they're in a different place each time. After you successfully enter your code all of the numbers disappear. It certainly makes it slower to enter your PIN, but it also makes it impossible to surreptitiously determine your PIN.

Given some of Google's recent comments on patents, what is the likelihood that they picked one of the most obviously documented prior art patent ideas they could come up with just to make a point?Just trying to make the point that, "If this gets patented, then clearly ANYTHING can. And that proves that the system is broken."

Or maybe I'm just being entirely too naive.

But doesn't that DRM then destroy your rights granted by the first-sale doctrine? And then it comes down to which law takes precedence: the DMCA, or the right of first sale.

Do any of you law types have any comment on this legal conflict?