In an article (free subscription required) published today on the New York Times Web site, John Markoff writes about the current hubbub surrounding a recent patent application filed by Apple Computer to the US Patent and Trademark office. The application talks about an “active enclosure for a computing device.” The interesting thing is that, according to the article, Color Kinetics, a company specializing in light-emitting-diode technology, appears to have filed a similar application several years ago. Time will tell how this pans out.