The patent application notes that the options on the pen’s touchscreen will change depending on the way it “is held by the user, a fingerprint of a user, an angle and/or distance of a digital inking device with respect to a paired computer, a particular grip a user has on a digital inking device, an amount of pressure that is used to hold a digital inking device, a contact pressure between a digital inking device and a paired computer, and/or one more gestures performed by a user.”

While many tech firms file a number of patents each year, not all of the technology protected will immediately make their way to consumers. However, we would imagine that a Surface Pen with a touchscreen status bar could become available in the near future.

Additional images from Microsoft’s patent application