Slider With Trackball Patent From RIM
I know this is a bit of old news (being almost a week old 
) but I found it interesting when reading about the new patent from RIM called “Hybrid Portrait-Landscape Handheld Device With Trackball Navigation and Qwerty Hideaway Keyboard.”
Personally it looks like a ton of other HTC Windows Mobile devices. I guess the slider functionality is pretty new for RIM. I know that if I had a slider I would have a terrible case of ADD opening and closing it during meetings. 
I guess the real patent from RIM is the fact that it is a slider device with a TRACKBALL. I always found sliders annoying since you need two hands to operate the damn things. The other problem is that the top keys are always blocked by the top of the slider.
I really hope RIM continues with the BrickBerry as I call it. It was bad enough when I had to use a SureType device for a few weeks. The cool part about the device is that it switches from portrait to landscape. Another nice part about sliders is that they get a bigger screen. My question is how does the touchscreen patent we heard about previously fit in to the picture?
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March 7th, 2008 14:09
I don’t understand how they can patent this when there is plenty of prior art (HTC etc.)
March 9th, 2008 22:20
They have very convincing lawyers
March 11th, 2008 06:55
Looks waaaay to much like the Imate.