Apple has been awarded a patent for the design of a trackpad that features a glass trackpad on top of an aluminum unibody enclosure seen in its MacBook lineup.
Entitled “Portable Computer,” U.S. Patent No. D674382 was given to Apple by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Illustrations of the patent show the “ornamental design for a portable computer.” Among those who were responsible for designing the trackpad are none other than Steve Jobs and Jony Ive.
In the patent, Apple explains that the surface of MacBook computers is metallic and the illustrations show Apple’s existing trackpad design found below the keyboard on a MacBook.
The patent comes from a number of application continuations. The first was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2008. In the filing, Apple refers to the MacBook illustrations as “our new design.”
The bigger glass trackpad first appeared in Apple’s MacBook Pros in late 2008 when Apple began its major redesign with unibody aluminum enclosures. Previous versions of MacBooks featured a button below the trackpad for clicking, while the new MacBook Pro glass trackpad was the first one to act as a single button that also included multi-touch gestures.
Image Credit: Softpedia
