The trackball was invented by Tom Cranston, Fred Longstaff and Kenyon Taylor working on the Royal Canadian Navy's DATAR project in 1952
Independently, Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute invented the first mouse prototype in 1963, with the assistance of his colleague Bill English.
German company Telefunken was the first company in the world to develop a mechanical mouse; it was published it on 2 October 1968 and called "Rollkugel" (German for "rolling ball")