'The story is usually told as relating to the Dutch patent (NL 6514306) Krøyer applied for. This application was not approved. According to the story, the Dutch Patent Office found an old issue of the Donald Duck magazine which showed the same invention. Since an invention has to be new to be patentable, the application was refused.''
Life imitates art- life imitates life- life uses art as defense
p.s Healthy discussion going on at ResearchGate.
http://www.researchgate.net/topic/Physics/post/What_do_you_t...