The fundamental problem is that MP3 wasn't just dreamed up by a dude in a lab somewhere, it's a standard which builds on the work of earlier codecs and formats, so it's easy for a variety of different entities to legitimately lay claim to having some patents related to its creation.
It's mildly convincing and sites are starting to pick it up -- the story goes some dude grabbed these pics from a Photoshop template his friend was working on and then posted it to Flickr, a scenario reminiscent of those iPod nano phatty shots that turned out to be real.
We got to take the dude out for a spin, and performance was definitely up to par (translation: it plays Crysis), though the design left a little something to be desired, like... style.