Patent ID: 7808479

Claim:
A user configurable mouse, comprising: a unibody housing having a buttonless touch sensitive surface divided into an array of independent and spatially distinct sensing regions wherein at least some of the sensing regions are positioned substantially around most of the periphery of the unibody housing, each sensing region being configured to generate a signal when the sensing region detects that a portion of a user's hand is touching the sensing region, the signal including information identifying the particular location of the sensing region and a time at which the sensing region detected the portion of the user's hand on the sensing region, wherein signals from at least two sensing regions of the array of sensing regions are combined to form a hand signal that defines a pixilated image of a contact patch produced by the portion of the hand in contact with the mouse at a time that the portion of the user's hand touches the associated sensing regions regardless of where the portion of the user's hand contacts the touch sensitive surface, wherein a first hand signal corresponding to first positions of a user's hand on the unibody housing at a first time is compared to a second hand signal corresponding to second positions of the user's hand on the unibody mouse at a second time such that a comparison can be made between which portions of the touch sensitive surface are being touched at the first time and which portions of the touch sensitive surface are being touched at the second time, and whereby at least one button function is implemented based solely upon the comparison of the first hand signal and the second hand signal.