They can try but the patent won't be valid due to something called Prior Art.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_art
Prior art (state of the art or background art), in most systems of patent law, constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality. If an invention has been described in the prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid.

Steve S