Microsoft gets dual-screen design patent

June 30th, 2010, 01:04 Posted By: wraggster

A U.S. design patent received by Microsoft today for a "dual display device" looks like a mere remnant of the days when the company's Courier project was still a going concern. However, the fact that Microsoft filed for a design patent earlier this year shows that the company was serious, at one point, about the possibility of bringing Courier to market as a product in its own right -- before killing it off.

Based on the illustrations, the design patent is pretty clearly for the Courier device, the "secret tablet" from Microsoft that was revealed by Gizmodo last year and held up as a potential rival to Apple's iPad. In April, Microsoft confirmed and canceled the Courier project in one fell swoop but noted that the underlying technologies would still be "evaluated for use in future Microsoft offerings."

In an interview with TechFlash in May, outgoing Microsoft Entertainment & Devices President Robbie Bach said Courier was never a "device," instead calling it a project and an incubation leading to innovations that could find their way into other Microsoft products.

The design patent was filed on Jan. 19. These types of patents, covering a product's ornamental design, are good for 14 years, so Microsoft has a bit of time if it decides to revive the Courier concept.

Another clue from the filing provides further evidence of how serious the company was about the project, showing that the company went so far as to hire an outside design firm to work on the Courier.

In addition to Microsoft's Jonathan Harris, the inventors named in the patent filing are Scott Wilson and Stephen Christopher of the Chicago design firm Minimal, whose website lists "Multiple Confidential Programs" for Xbox and Microsoft among its projects currently in progress --- including "ongoing cross-divisional collaborations on future mobile devices, PC hardware, gaming systems and experiences."

Apart from Courier, another of those confidential Microsoft design projects was apparently the new Xbox 360. Wilson has been credited publicly for his design work on the slimmed-down Microsoft game console .

http://www.techflash.com/seattle/201...gn_patent.html

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