Patent shows PSP-like phone

There have been rumors floating around that Sony may be interested in producing a PSP phone.  A patent filed by Sony Ericsson lends some credibility to those rumors.

The patent depicts a phone with a screen that can swivel around to produce a look and feel similar to the PSP. The patent also shows notification boxes that allow you to pause a game to pick up a phone call.

The device seems fairly small, but from the picture there's no real way to tell the size. One thing to note is that there is no dedicated numberpad. This would lead us to believe that the device would have a touchscreen, but after reading through the patent filing, it describes "a group of special numeric keys." Those keys look like they would be arranged in a very awkward manner for dialing.

PSP phone details emerge [via boygenius]