RIM seems to be piling up on the research and development budget recently, with the Canadian-based smartphone manufacturer recently filing a couple more two patent applications to the USPTO, where both of them are related to the use of fuel cells in an electronic device setting. One application is meant for the frame of an electronic device which comprises of a fuel cell in the frame, while there is at least one inlet which would enable the user to add fuel to the cell as and when required. Not only that, there is also another connector which links a fuel cell to at least one other electronic component of the device.
As for the second application, it is meant for a fuel tank that is located within the frame of a portable electronic device. The electronic device will comprise of a fuel cell that will be able to power at least one component that belongs to the device. The frame itself comes with a hollow area for the fuel to be stored, where another section will include an inlet so that you can introduce the fuel into the hollow storage area, while an outlet is also present to release fuel stored in the hollow region to the fuel cell. It does seem as though many more years of work and research needs to be done before such fuel cell patents will be implemented in an actual piece of hardware, so hopefully RIM succeeds.