While a lot of patent-related news these days is a slightly more complicated take on who is taking their ball and going home, Sony's latest patent application is actually sort of interesting. Who would have thought that was still possible?

Sony's patent application is for a new sort of haptic feedback, in addition to the vibration that phones currently use. A stylus with a ”rolling contact ball gripping mechanism” would be able to make it easier or harder to move the stylus on the screen.

The possible uses for this type of system are certainly interesting. For example, the stylus could replicate the feel of a ballpoint pen on paper to make writing using the stylus easier, something that Samsung has already tried to do by increasing the friction of the S Pen on the Galaxy Note 2.

Sony has some more interesting ideas in its patent application, which includes a scenario where the stylus “simulates the manipulation of objects depicted on a display, including at least one of a game object and a game character.” Another is a situation where “rotary stylus motion triggers a game event.”

What do you think some interesting uses for this stylus could be?