Companies like Sony often apply for patents that may never be used though they help give you insight in the direction the company might be moving towards. In the case of Sony Mobile, which acted under the name of Sony Ericsson in 2010, the company had applied for a ‘head control’ patent which would help users navigate their smartphone with different head movements. The patent, which has yet to be approved, would be based on a new generation of Bluetooth headsets with motion-sensing technology. Then, the user could create their own custom commands like nodding to answer a phone call while a left to right head movement could indicate the closing of a program.

Whether or not the patent office will ever award Sony with this patent remains to be seen. Even with a lack of a granted patent, Sony could choose to move forward with such a technology but the partiality of it ultimately comes down to the adjustability of this technology and its headset affordability. Still, such a technology could further a phone’s use in a hands-free environment like driving where a simple nod can answer and end a call.

[Via USPTO]