Apple has been awarded a patent for the design of the glass trackpad atop the aluminum unibody enclosure of its MacBook lineup.
U.S. Patent No. D674382, simply entitled Portable Computer, was granted to Apple by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Its illustrations show the “ornamental design for a portable computer,” and included among its inventors are Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and chief designer Jony Ive.
In the patent, Apple notes the “metallic” surface of its MacBook computers, and the illustrations show the company’s trackpad design that is found below the keyboard on a MacBook.
The larger glass trackpad was introduced on Apple’s MacBook Pro lineup in late 2008, along with the company’s unibody aluminum enclosures. The glass trackpad was the first to understand multi-touch gestures, and also act a single physical button.
Along with Jobs and Ive, other inventors credited in the patent are Bartley K. Andre, Daniel J. Coster, Daniele De luliis, Evans Hankey, Richard P. Howart, Duncan Robert Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Peter Russell-Clarke, Douglas B. Satzger, Christopher J. Stringer, Eugene Antony Whang, and Rico Zorkendorfer.
