WPCentral reports that a patent for the Metro UI, filed under "Visual motion for user interface feedback", has been approved by the USPTO.

The patent was originally filed in early 2010 but finally approved on August 18th. We're still waiting on the official patent number to appear, which we're told usually takes a few days to be generated and listed--for now we have the issue date within the application itself.

  Microsoft granted patent on Metro UI