A few points to help put this in context:

1. Technically, the USPTO hasn't yet "invalidated" the patent; it issued a first "Office action" in which it stated that all of the patents claims were unpatentable in view of varying combinations of prior-art references.

2. Institutionally the USPTO is very much aware of the significance of reexamination for a patent in litigation.

3. The Office action was signed by a "primary" examiner, i.e., someone who has been around the block a few times. Another primary examiner and a supervisory primary examiner are listed as "conferees." You would be right to read this as a signal that the USPTO takes these matters very seriously; the detailed written analysis (which I haven't studied) seems to bear this out.

4. The primary reference cited is a patent [1] filed in November 2005 whose lead inventor was Danny Hillis --- dare I say, the legendary Danny Hillis [2].

Another main reference is a Japanese patent publication from 2000, referred to as the Nomura reference.

5. In responding to the rejection, Apple can try to establish that their inventors predated Hillis's November 2005 filing date. This is referred to as "swearing behind" the Hillis patent's filing date [3]. But the Apple inventors' filing date is January 2007; swearing behind that far would be a real challenge. (I won't go into the details of the statute and regulation unless people are interested.)

Apple can't swear behind the 2000 Nomura publication because it was published more than one year before Apple's January 2007 filing date --- see 35 USC 102(b).

6. Paragraph 14 on page 34 is pretty typical: It says, in effect, "you'd better take your best shot at contesting this rejection now, Apple, because the next time around it will be a final rejection."

7. If, as seems likely, the USPTO does issue a final rejection, Apple can appeal, first to an administrative appellate body in the USPTO, and if necessary to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit is required by Supreme Court precedent to be fairly deferential to the USPTO's findings in some respects, but it's not entirely clear to me how that would play out here.

[EDITED FOR STYLE]

[1] http://www.google.com/patents/US7724242

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Daniel_Hillis

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swear_back_of_a_reference

It took quite a lot of courage to write this post, but here goes:

I spent a large portion of the past 9 months sleeping rough, maybe 1 in 10 days in total.

I was living in Spain and moved back on my own at the age of 19, with no job to come to, the promise of a house to stay at for a month and £1,200.

This was no grand entrepreneurial dream, it was simply trying against everything which told me it was stupid to improve the quality of my life, see the woman I left behind in the UK and find work within the tech industry.

People these days are too quick to criticize the youth of today for not having jobs or sponging off their parents but in my opinion, even when you have a large skill set and are willing to do anything, it isn't easy to find work. I went to 41 interviews in everything from cleaning to PHP programming before I was finally accepted on a job.

Even once I found a job, the pay was piss poor and I was living in sheltered accommodation (a step up from the bedsits and alley ways I never told any of my friends or families I was 'sleeping' in) to keep a roof over my head, all the time only being able to afford to eat one meal per day (on a good week!)

Now, 9 months later, I am living in a home which I find adequate, I have a new, new job which pays me £13,000 per year (almost 3 times what I got paid at my first job) and my relationship with my girlfriend is stronger than ever. But more importantly, I feel more happy and more empowered than ever before in my entire life.

The point of this post is really this: If you are in this situation, you can make it out, it won't be easy, but it isn't impossible.

The area is totally different, but if you are currently homeless, or in danger of being homeless, or really just in any kind of trouble in the north of England, you can find my email address on my profile here, fire a message off to me and I will see what I can do. Somebody helped me out when I was at the darkest point, it's only fitting I do the same - no one wants to be alone at Christmas.

Also, on a side note, the day I created my HN account on here I was sleeping rough, sat in the middle of a public park with just a backpack and a laptop, but dreaming of a better life, just wanted to thank all the people on here for showing me the better side of humanity when all hope seemed lost

It's not a great apology because it implies things were just unclear, and need to be clarified. And we were silly for being confusing by the tricky legal stuff.

For instance, they say "The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement." No, the language they proposed clearly said that was something they could do: "you agree that a business may pay us to display your photos in connection with paid content." (paraphrased) Or the bit about "you own your photos and that hasn't changed". True, but that's not what people were complaining about. They were complaining about how it says "you own your photos but you grant us the rights to do anything with them up to selling them." Instagram just saying "you own your photos" back is meaningless as a response and sounds like they think we are just stupid.

(My source for the original complaints: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/instagrams-terms-of...)