Apple patent on Dock affecting dock packages ?

[Julien Lavergne <julien.lavergne@gmail.com>]

Hi,

There is now a patent for Apple of the concept of "Dock". Is there a
risk for all "dock" packages in Debian, such as avant-window-navigator ?

Slashdot article :
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/08/1224224

The patent :
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=7,434,177

Thanks for your help.

Regards,
Julien Lavergne