There's an old engineers' saying that goes "If it ain't broke...it doesn't have enough upgrades." And if we're reading this news  right, Apple's got the same idea. We've heard that they've been granted another patent for a "hybrid low power computer mouse," which looks like an upgrade to their wireless Mighty Mouse.

According to the patent (publication number 7,154,477) granted to Apple by the US Patent & Trademark Office, this new mouse design is slated to fix one recurring problem - short battery life. In an effort to stretch the Mighty Mouse's two-month battery change intervals, and to forego making a rechargeable system, Apple's new mouse patent called for a two-part tracking system. The ever-present optical tracking system, and a new low-consumption tracking system running on an accelerometer - the same device that runs a Wiimote.

The design's under development by Steve Hotelling, Joshua Strickon, Brian Huppi and Christoph Krah, and we're not too sure how these two tracking systems will interact to make for a low-consumption device. But for now, we invite you to read up on the full details on the patent, available on the read link.