Apple Wins Patent For Glass-On Metal TrackPad

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has just awarded Apple a patent design for a glass-on metal trackpad, the ones that you usually see on a MacBook. The newly awarded patent, U.S. Patent No. D674382, which is entitled “Portable Computer,” claims an “ornamental design” for a portable computer. The patent application, filed in March last year, reveals that Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive are two among many inventors of the patent.

The patent description highlights a portion of a portable computer that features a metallic surface. “The dot-dash broken lines represent an unclaimed border of the claimed design. The dashed broken lines represent environmental subject matter that forms no part of the claimed design,” it said. Other inventors of the patent include 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.