Apple Patentmania: 31 Years of Big Ideas

A visual history of Apple patent filings: the brilliant, the bizarre, the just plain bad.

By  |  Monday, December 15, 2008 at 1:19 am

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applepatents-mouseinnards

Display System

Filed July 19th, 1982

I’m kind of smitten with this drawing that shows the original Apple mouse, which shipped with the proto-Mac known as the Lisa. It nicely sums up what Apple (and all successful technology companies) do at their best: hide infinite complexity beneath a surface that makes it all simple and intuitive.  (And no, I’m not sure why this patent called a mouse a “display system.”)

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