Alex Wolfe (InformationWeek) writes about a new patent just awarded to the folks in Redmond.

Graphical User Interface For A Screen Telephone (U.S. Patent 7,225,409) is for:

A graphical user interface for a web telephone [which] provides a unique combination of display elements that provide information and enable the user to access functionality of the device.

More potential worries for Apple since the patent isn’t just for a phone, but for the underlying software, and the patent document even includes a helpful flowchart.

Although the patent was awarded on May 29, 2007, it was originally filed in 1999, which presumably means Microsoft could claim it had the idea first.

Steve Jobs, call your lawyer?