Apple Receives Patent for First iPhone: Better Late than Never?

Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) first generation iPhone, which was introduced in 2007 by then-CEO Steve Jobs and named Time Magazine’s Invention of the Year, was awarded a design patent by The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday.

As AppleInsider reported, the basic design of the first iPhone “shook up the smartphone industry with its finger-driven touchscreen.” Illustrations accompanying the patent show the phone’s iconic design in detail; the phone featured a two-tone back that was mostly made of aluminum, its screen measured 480 pixels by 320 pixels, it operated on the 2G network; and it introduced the five physical buttons that have remained part of its design through consistent generations.

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At the time, both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times published positive, but cautious reviews of the phone. However the Journal’s technology columnist Walt Mossberg noted that “despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer.”

The inventors credited with the phone’s design are Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive, Bartley Andre, Daniel Coster, Daniele De Iuliis, Richard Howarth, Duncan Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Rohrbach, Douglas Satzger, Calvin Seid, Christopher Stringer, Eugene Whang, and Rico Zorkendorfer.

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