New RIM Patent Points Toward Touchscreen BlackBerry Slider

We’ve told you time and time again about RIM’s plans to issue a BlackBerry handset with a touchscreen and the recent uncovering of a telling patent filing makes the forecast for a touchscreen RIM quite promising indeed. The patent covers a slider device with trackball navigation and a slide-out qwerty keyboard. Operation of the theoretical device would be achieved using the physical keypad and controls or with a finger or stylus on the touchscreen. Display orientation will be able to rotate to either portrait or landscape depending on usage. This isn’t the first patent we’ve seen from RIM that involves a touchscreen, but it certainly is more probable than most in terms of a design that we may see used in the production of a touch device from RIM. A BlackBerry with the form factor explained and illustrated by this patent would most likely be very well-received by an army of BlackBerry users eagerly anticipating the advent of BlackBerry touch. What do you think, would this one be a winner?

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