SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Have you ever dropped your iPhone, only to see the glass shatter or crack on concrete or other hard surfaces?

Well, Apple Inc. AAPL, +1.13%  may have invented an app for that, or at least a preventative measure that may eventually be built into future iPhones.

On Tuesday, Apple was issued a patent for a mechanism that will reorient the phone in a freefall, which may keep the glass in your iPhone from shattering or cracking, as well as shielding other electronic components such as the camera lens.

As the tech blog Gizmodo described the patent, it basically makes your phone “fall like a cat.” Cats have a righting reflex that lets them re-orient themselves in mid-air, so they land on their feet.

According to the patent, a sensor detects that the phone is in freefall, then figures out the orientation of the device, estimates the impact and selectively changes the orientation of the device via a protective mechanism. It’s a pretty complex patent, and notes the new technology has a “broad application.”

And while the patent specifies use in mobile devices, “the devices and techniques disclosed herein are equally applicable to other types of devices,” it says.

The patent was initially submitted to the The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in September 2011 and cites Nicholas King of San Jose, Calif., and Fletcher Rothkopf of Los Altos, Calif., as the inventors.

It’s not clear how soon this mechanism will be available, if ever, or even how well it works, but this is something every mobile-phone consumer would love.

Source: Marketwatch.com