I don't see the big deal with this as other manufacturers are sure to move in if there's so much profit to be made there. Though is it possible to patent something like 'ASIC SHA-256 hashing' in general, so nobody else is even legally allowed to compete? That could be disastrous for Bitcoin as BFL could then have >51% at any time, and nobody would be legally allowed to challenge it by producing their own ASICs. I assume this isn't a potential problem though, or somebody would have mentioned it already?
It currently takes just under 10 years for the USPTO to approve a patent. In Bitcoin time that is an eternity. There has also been a recent trend to reject patent applications with little merit. I would imagine a hardware implementation of SHA-256 falls under such a category.