Patents and Prior Art (Score 2, Interesting)

Having applied for various patents (in the U.S.), my experience is that it is very easy to get a patent approved. It is moderately hard to defend your patent, should someone challenge it, if it is ludicrous, as many suggest in this particular case. Prior art also only seems to apply if it's so obvious it could bite you if you put a finger inside the cage. The company I worked for successfully managed to patent a glorified answering machine, which incorporated a few "follow-me"-services, if you remember those being all the rage a few years ago. I spent days in Visio drawing flowcharts and random technobabble because our laywer asked us to produce such documents, after which he said "this will be patented without a problem!". He also said, and this is the interesting part, that "if challenged, your patent will most likely get tossed, but the likelihood of that happening is slim to none". Oh, and as a side note; during the patenting process, you're allowed to use "Patent Pending", because, well, it is. If you get your patent challenged and overturned, change a few things, pay the lawyer more money, and resume business as patent pending.