Apple wins patents for MacBook Pro, MacBook Air designs, more
Apple has won patents from the US Patent & Trademark Office for the design of the MacBook Pro with a glass trackpad and the MacBook Air.
Patent number D611,045 is for the design of the MacBook Pro with a glass trackpad. The inventors are Bartley K. Andre, Daniel J. Coster, Daniele De Iuliis, Evans Hankey, Richard P. Howarth, Jonathan P. Ive, Steve Jobs, Duncan Robert Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Peter Russell-Clarke, Douglas B. Satzger, Christopher J. Stringer, Eugene Antony Whange and Rico Zorkendorfer.
Patent number D611,044 is for the design of the MacBook Air. The inventors are the same as those listed above.
Apple has also been granted a patent (number 7672142) involving grounded flexible circuits. Electronic devices may be provided with one or more electrical components that may be coupled to one or more circuit boards by flexible circuits that can have reduced ground lengths. Each flexible circuit can include at least one ground conductor that may run along its length and that may have at least one portion exposed for coupling to a grounding element that may also be coupled to a ground plane. The inventors are Erik L. Wang, Philip Michael Hobson, Kenneth A. Jenks, Robert J. Hill and Robert W. Schlub.