I would argue the prior art for that is the iPod Touch which was out a year earlier, and probably conceived earlier than that. When I heard "iPad" rumors in 2009 the first thing I thought was "a big ipod touch." So what's to say these guys didn't see the pod touch and say "Yeah. That. But big"
That's fine any dandy, but I believe Apple is claiming a design patent specifically on the iPad. If we take the iPod touch as prior art, it still invalidates the iPad patent.
Fair enough. The patent actually shows a tablet that looks less like an iPad than it does a generic Tablet PC that one might have bought from Dell in 2004, though.
