On Aug 17, 2006, at 10:09 AM, Tamas Rudnai wrote:

> Some times ago Apple patented the mouse (by the time nobody
> else had that kind of device -- I mean the mouse with the
> ball). But the patent included that it has only one button

The Mouse was invented at SRI (1963!) (patent US3541541.)  The
"ball mouse" was invented in the early 70s at Xerox PARC.  It was
in use on (ie) Xerox Altos long before the Mac came into existence.
Apple might have patented some specifics to one-button mice
(legitimately novel ideas, even...)

See wikipedia.

BillW
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