Some celebrities aren't just pretty faces. A few of them are also touched with that Yankee prowess for tinkering and invention. In this weekly series, we introduce you to the Patents of the Rich and Famous. And maybe you learn a little bit about how patent literature works along the way.

Inventor: Walt Disney

Known For: Kids watching clever CGI-heavy films will one day associate their childhood with a crotchety old man and his Asian boyscout companion, but also a chronically happy mouse with a high-pitched voice. Because before Shrek, Wall-E, or Woody, there was Mickey. And thanks to Walt Disney's animations, there will always be Mickey.

Disney founded the studio that not only created Mickey Mouse, but also the entire canon of animated films including Snow White and The Lion King. Not only did his movies have enduring characters and stories, but they embodied the art of animation -- they looked good.

So while Pixar's films might rule this millennium's box offices, Walt Disney was the original king of animation. And nobody can ever take that from him because like any good American business man, he got it in writing.

Really. He patented the 'art of animation.'

Invented Apparatus: "The art of animation"