Amazon Patents Electronic Pen Technology

Amazon has filed a patent for an electronic pen technology whose purpose is yet to be announced. TechFlash.com, a technology news site based in Seattle, reports on the patent filing, which is unsurprisingly confusing to read. Here’s a snippet:

The input device records an annotation and an image of human-comprehensible content in the document sufficient to identify the document and possibly a location in the document. The human-comprehensible content is used to locate a digital version of the document and determine a corresponding location of the annotation in the digital version of the document.

You can view the full patent at The United States Patent & Trademark Office website.

It would be nice if this meant the ability to add handwritten, yet still digital, notes to the Kindle, but the language in the patent filing makes that appear unlikely. I’m looking forward to seeing what Amazon has in store for this new device.