Legal systems vary, but patents typically require something along the lines of an original and non-obvious invention. Desktop software has been using palette-style UIs with an arranged mix of controls, toolbars along the sides of a main display area, tabbed controls, and context-dependent controls and information for about as long as GUIs have existed, with countless examples of each of these things going back decades before Microsoft introduced the Ribbon branding, all of which seem to constitute prior art. So in what way is a ribbon-style UI either original or non-obvious enough to merit patent protection? What distinct new thing have Microsoft really invented here?