Acer, makers of the 10-inch Aspire One netbook coming later this year, could be prepared to take business in a new direction, if a recent U.S. patent filing is to be believed.

Of course, tech companies file patents these days the way I go through squares of TP after a night out eating Mexican, so don't think an Acer MID or tablet or whatever is coming tomorrow. Still, we have some details about what such a hypothetical device might entail thanks to the filing (gleaned by Electronic Pulp):

Arif Maskatia is the person listed as its inventor, which I take as to mean that he was the one who designed this MID. I can’t tell you what features this Acer MID will have exactly, but from what has been revealed in the design, it has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, a pretty sizable screen (that I think supports touch), and a dock connector.

An Intel Atom chip powering the insides would also be a good guess. [Patent via Electronic Pulp

Send an email to Jack Loftus, the author of this post, at jloftus@gizmodo.com.