The iPod came out in October 2001.
BeoCom 6000 came out in 1998.
In 2008 or 2009, I forget when exactly, the B&O CEO pathetically admitted in an interview B&O had failed to patent the clickwheel. Sad, really. The original iPod's wheel, which was mechanical, was nearly identical in feel and sound to the BC 6000 wheel.
But let's look at the positive. At least Apple has not yet sued B&O for using clickwheels on BeoCom 3 nor BeoCom 5 –the folks at Apple are agressive bastards when it comes to protecting their brand names and are currently attempting to claim the "Pod" name, if you can believe it.
And I like where B&O has evolved the clickwheel concept into the 3rd dimension with BeoSound 5.