Sony has filed a Patent for its PS5 faceplates. The patent discovered by OPAttack, which was filed in November 2020 and finally granted on November 16, 2021, is simply titled “Electronic Device Cover,” but the diagrams it shows show the PS5 bezels. The design patent was originally filed just a week before the PS5 launch last November and was later published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on November 16.
It depicts the “leather shell” of the console, suggesting that the company may have plans to sell new bezels in different colors. After several lawsuits and over a year of PS5 sales, Sony appears to have moved on to producing its own bezels for the new console. Honestly, it’s not much more in the bezel patent, but this potentially suggests Sony might consider making its own interchangeable bezels. It will be interesting to see if Sony has built things like this into its new PS5 bezels and cases.
While there have been a lot of colors for the controller released for the PS5, Sony hasn’t offered any color option for the PS5. Since Sony does not provide official alternatives to what can fit on the console, others have launched their own PS5 bezel manufacturers with additional colors and designs.
Sony basically applied for a patent for the sidebar on the PlayStation 5, which not only opened the door for manufacturing custom faceplates but also opened the door for potential licensing deals for third-party companies to create and sell their own faceplates. The PS5 panel can be disassembled with slight modifications, as Sony itself demonstrated before launching the game console in November 2020. The latest illustration in the patent shows the panel connected to the PS5 console. There were a couple of third-party custom PS5 faceplates sellers but as we know Sony shut them all.
The USPTO recently granted Sony a bezel patent which suggests the PS5 may eventually get official covers from the console manufacturer. Sony may be in the process of launching a number of official bezels for its PS5 console after a new patent application was filed showing covers.
While Sony currently only sells a white PS5, we hope that the patent for the outward-facing bezel could mean that Sony now intends to sell multiple versions. But the new patent has led many to hope that, for example, a black version of the console can be created by Sony by selling new versions of the plates mounted on the outside of the PS5. In a Reddit post last month, Dbrand stated that Sony did not have a registered design patent for the PS5 plates when it launched its version.
Sometime before, Sony followed Dbrand in the challenge and did threaten to sue the company for its unofficial PS5 skins. Sony eventually threatened DBrand with legal action, forcing the company to remove the faceplates and replace them a few days later with a new ad campaign that poked fun at Sony’s legal team.
