Apple Wins Glass Trackpad Patent Designed By Steve Jobs & Jony Ive

A design patent for aluminium unibody MacBook’s glass trackpad developed by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and chief designer Jony Ive has been awarded to Apple today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, reports AppleInsider. The patent is titled as ‘Portable Computer’ and illustrates the ornamental design for a portable computer.

Patent 130115

The U.S. Patent No. D674382 is a part of a series of application continuations, the first of which was filed with the USPTO in 2008. In the document, Apple refers to the MacBook illustrations as “our new design.” Apple’s filing claims that the surface of its MacBook computers is “metallic,” and the included illustrations show the company’s existing trackpad design found below the keyboard on a MacBook.

The larger glass trackpad debuted in Apple’s MacBook Pros in late 2008 when the company ushered in a major redesign with unibody aluminum enclosures. Unlike previous MacBooks that had a dedicated button below the trackpad for clicking, the new MacBook Pro glass trackpad was the first to act as a single physical button and to also understand multi-touch gestures.

The report also says that in addition to Jobs and Ive, 14 other inventors have been credited in the patent.

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