Motorola published a patent last week which detailed plans to bring 3D to their flip phones and slider phones. While the idea may just be conceptual, flip phone mockups resemble one of the company’s previous phones, the Krave ZN4, in that there is a transparent layer overlaying a touchscreen.

In Motorola’s new patent however, the plastic overlay does not serve as just a touch-sensitive membrane over a touchscreen. Instead, the transparent layer brings the images on the underlying screen into 3D. Without the phone flipped/slid shut, the images will only be two-dimensional, but as soon as the phone is closed the images are brought into 3D. This patent seems like it would mainly be used on touchscreen devices, which likely wouldn’t feature hardware keyboards.

Looks like Motorola is trying to differentiate themselves with a little 3D magic. Personally this feels a bit gimmicky, but then again, maybe this is the long-lost functionality that our Droids have been missing.

[Via Engadget]