icon grids predate the iphone, of course (windows mobile, palm pilot, newton?). I think Apple's claims were more specific, dealing with particular icons, colors, and the favorite apps at the bottom.
Did 16x16 (and then 32x32, and etc etc) icons get patents? Because someone, somewhere, lost a lot of money - and I got consistently sized icons for many years.
EDIT: This isn't as ridiculous as it sounds. See this 2002 article. BT registered a patent in 1976 for "double clicking hyperlinks" (or somesuch), and then in 2000 they realised that they owned this patent, and a bunch of people were clicking hyperlinks on the WWW, and they started suing people. They lost.
EDIT: This isn't as ridiculous as it sounds. See this 2002 article. BT registered a patent in 1976 for "double clicking hyperlinks" (or somesuch), and then in 2000 they realised that they owned this patent, and a bunch of people were clicking hyperlinks on the WWW, and they started suing people. They lost.
(http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/BT-patent-case-raises-...)
(http://eupat.ffii.org/pikta/xrani/hyperlink/)