The touch screen is actually a pretty good idea, either scrapped from the Prizm or reserved for a future model. Wait, the Classpad 300 has a touchscreen, dunno if it does stuff as described in the patent though. As for the grayscale, I believe it's because the patents are printed in black and white and they should had been in color (they prolly just took a picture and they pasted it in the patent papers as is without processing so it looks like the actual pic the Prizm shows), but adding Prizm features to the 9860 would be interesting.
Also wondering if anyone checked TI's patents?