This patent appears to have gone almost 4 years between being filed and being issued. One wonders what they spent that time doing. Looking through their car's user manual for prior art, perhaps? (Or perhaps they took that phrase literally, and conducted a search of the Louvre...)
Even if USPTO was actually doing a good job of vetting patents, that would still have been four years during which anybody seeking to use a multiply linked list would have to do so under the shadow of a possible lawsuit (which would be expensive, even if trivially winnable) if and when the patent was accepted.
Even if USPTO was actually doing a good job of vetting patents, that would still have been four years during which anybody seeking to use a multiply linked list would have to do so under the shadow of a possible lawsuit (which would be expensive, even if trivially winnable) if and when the patent was accepted.