Makes me wonder. Suppose someone holds some sort of gear-patent and it turns out the gear-structure is used by organisms that predate mankind (or are older than

Makes me wonder. Suppose someone holds some sort of gear-patent and it turns out the gear-structure is used by organisms that predate mankind (or are older than the patent at least)...would said patent become null and void due to "prior art" or is it sufficient that the manmade gear lives in another application domain?