Seo's appeal on prior art as an excuse would not even fool a probationary teacher, in fact the judge might make Belchin do 100 lines for cheek.
It just so happened that a NEW employee TURNED UP a DOCUMENT in a PORN MAGAZINE that he was not looking for and came about it accidentally that appeared to SEO that prior art was staring them in the face. Mona Liza comes to mind.
That is after BPRG, SEO and probably 300 Cardinal patent lawyers had spent months checking to see if prior art or previous patents covered this new technology.