Apple likes jailbroken iPhones too

Somebody in Cupertino's in a lot of hot water Monday morning. In fact, they might as well not even show up to work tomorrow.

Apparently some genius at Apple submitted a patent application for iPhone biometric security to the USPTO with evidence of jailbreaking all over it. Exhibit 500C (at right) clearly shows icons for Installer.app and SMBPrefs (which are only available on JB'd iPhones) and the iWood Realize theme from the iSpazio repository reports Engadget.

The gaff is particularly embarrassing because just last month Apple said that jailbreaking was illegal claiming that it's a DMCA violation and involves copyright infringement.

Is Apple's use of a jailbroken iPhone in a patent application an endorsement of jailbreaking, or a tacit agreement that its own OS is insufficient? Don't bet your life on it, but it's pretty funny nonetheless.