There have been some strange keyboard designs on mobile phones over the years. We have seen sliding keyboards and all sorts of designs. The keyboard is a particularly important part of any smartphone that can determine if the phone lives or dies in the marketplace.

A patent application has turned up form Samsung at the USTPO that has an attached image showing that Samsung is trying to patent a weird folding keyboard. The keyboard pops out of the sides of the phone like wings for typing.

The design seems iffy to me. If the keyboard doesn’t have enough support, it seems like it would try to fold up while you were typing. In addition, it would put the weight of the device on the keyboard while typing. I guess it wouldn’t actually be that complex to design a folding keyboard it just seems strange.

[via PhoneArena]