A bumper crop of circumstantial evidence surrounding the Android-based PlayStation Phone is starting to come together today — when it rains, it pours, as they say — and one particularly interesting thread suggests that the ecosystem surrounding the device might be called “Z-System.” An astute tipster notes that the term appears in the upper left of one of our shots, which maps to a domain — z-system.com, naturally — that’s owned by Sony Ericsson. Turns out the company also holds trademarks for Z-System in the US and Benelux trademark offices (among others, presumably) that were filed this year. It’s possible that this specific device is called Z-System, but we’re going to float the theory that its underlying gaming platform will be called Z-System — possibly a premium game store and set of software libraries that together will earn a device the Z-System badge. Notably, Z-System’s filing category in the USPTO includes “software for interacting or playing with electronic or video games,” not hardware, so that’s pretty damning. As we already saw with the BlackPad / SurfBook / PlayBook fiasco, trademarks don’t mean much until a device is actually announced — but it’s something to keep an eye on. [Thanks, Andrew] Sony Ericsson Z-System: the PlayStation Phone’s gaming platform? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink