Some notebook vendors are worried that the recent trademark filing by Apple to the US Patent and Trademark Office will give the company advantages over other companies’ laptops. Said patent application is about a memory card reader combined with a standard USB port. Notebook makers have reasons to believe that if Apple gets the technology patented, it will be able to produce MacBooks which are slimmer than the current ones.

According to Taiwan-based connector maker Kuang Ying, a conventional SD card post only measures 27.1mm in width while a USB port measures around 13.5mm. Combining these two will enable manufacturers to save around 12-13mm from their notebooks’ design. Hence, they can use that space to add more functionality to their notebooks.

If this patent is granted to Apple, and Apple decides to push through in applying this to their next MacBook product lines, we can just imagine how thin MacBook Airs will be.

[via Digitimes, image via Apple]