Some people love checking out newly approved patents, since they are a look in the future. And this Christmas an interesting one was approved. Because according to ‘United States Patent Approval 20080313857′ Nokia is working on a new device ‘which includes at least four device parts’.

It’s believed to be the next generation Nokia Communicator, and it looks…. special. Instead of the classical clamshell phone this one folds open in four seperate pieces. The end result looks like… well actually I don’t know what it looks like. It seems that they’re trying to create a device that is small enough to carry around in your pocket, but can become big enough to be a mini laptop. But this design doesn’t seem to be RSI-proof, check out the keyboard:

In the past it was easy to describe a product. We used to talk about a mobile phone or a handheld gaming device, but these days things have gone blurry. Borders have disappeared, and this patent is another proof of that. Look at claim 23-26:
’23. The device of claim 1, wherein said device is a mobile phone.
24. The device of claim 1, wherein said device is a laptop computer.
25. The device of claim 1, wherein said device is a handheld gaming device.
26. The device of claim 1, wherein said device is a media player.’
I’m actually surprised that you still have to claim being a ‘handheld gaming device’ and ‘media player’, when you also claim ‘laptop computer’. Isn’t a ‘laptop computer’ covering a lot of bases?

via cellpassion