How to stylishly yet functionally integrate a phone dialpad into a BlackBerry QWERTY keypad- well, that's a challenge that is part of the job description for several designers at RIM.

When we look at the huge amount of patent art attached to a just-published BlackBerry patent application entitled "Keyboard Arrangement," we can get a glimpse of where these integrated keyboard design inspirations are headed.

First, here's the Abstract for this patent app (20060263137).

"A physical keyboard for a handheld mobile communication device having a plurality of keys with corresponding indicia including keys simultaneously presenting associated alphabetic indicia and associated numeric indicia," the Abstract states.

"The alphabetic indicia correspond to letters A-Z that are arranged in a QWERTY pattern and the numeric indicia correspond to at least numerals 1-9 that are arranged in an ITU Standard E.161 phone keypad pattern," the Anstract adds. "At least some of the numerals and at least some of the letters are presented on the same keys thereby establishing an overlaid relationship. The keys that present alphabetic indicia number fewer than 26.

I know we don't derive a lot of specifics from the art included on the patent cover age. But not to scratch our heads. Figure 11A is one of the more vividly displayed and described examples of what the designers at RIM may have in mind. Let's take a peek.

Here's the explanation for the above, directly from the Patent app itself:

FIG. 11 shows a handheld mobile communication device 10 that has an example physical keyboard array of 20 keys, with five columns and four rows. An exploded view of the keyboard is presented in FIG. 11A.

Fourteen keys on the keyboard 14 are associated with alphabetic characters and ten keys are associated with numbers. The four rows include a first row 50, a second row 52, a third row 54, and a fourth row 56. The five columns include a first column 60, a second column 62, a third column 64, a fourth column 66, and a fifth column 68. Many of the keys have different sizes than the other keys, and the rows are non-linear. In particular, the rows are V-shaped, with the middle key in the third column 64 representing the point of the V.

The columns are generally straight, but the outer two columns 60, 62, 66, 68 angle inwardly toward the middle column 64. To readily identify the phone user interface (the second user interface), the numeric phone keys 0-9 include a color scheme that is different from that of the remaining keys associated with the QWERTY key arrangement. In this example, the color scheme of the numeric phone keys has a two tone appearance, with the upper portion of the numeric keys being a first color and the lower portion of the numeric keys being a second color.

In the example, the upper portion of the keys is white with blue letters and the lower portion of the keys is blue with white letters. Most of the remaining keys associated with the QWERTY key arrangement are predominantly the second, blue color with white lettering. The first color may be lighter than the second color, or darker than the second color. In addition, the keyboard 14 includes a "send" key 6 and an "end" key 8.

The "send" key 6 is positioned in the upper left corner of the keyboard 14 and the "end" key 8 is positioned in the upper right corner. The "send" key 6 and "end" key 8 may have different color schemes than the remainder of the keys in order to distinguish them from other keys. In addition, the "send" and "end" keys 6, 8 may have different colors from one another. In the example shown, the "send" key 6 is green and the "end" key 8 is red. Different colors may be utilized, if desired.