Just purchased a new Acer i5 laptop and found its Elantech touchpad not working properly inside Ubuntu. Worked like a charm in Windows though which eliminated any issue with the hardware. On digging more I found that the issue is with the options of ubuntu on how it configures it. To get it working follow the steps below
cd /etc/modprobe.d/
sudo gedit options.conf
In the text editor, type: options psmouse proto=imps
Save the file and close it.
sudo modprobe -r psmouse
sudo modprobe psmouse
Touchpad issue in Acer Laptop (Ubuntu 13.04)