Update: It turns out this patent is not for any type of follow-up to the Essential Phone. The filing is instead an older patent for the original Essential Phone that was cleared two days ago, but filed in 2017. We regret the error and apologize for any confusion.

A recent patent filing in the United States by Essential Products, Inc., lays out some information about a new device which looks a whole lot like an Essential Phone 2.

Normally, a follow-up to a widely-publicized smartphone wouldn’t be too surprising. However, a lot happened last year that suggested there wouldn’t be an Essential Phone 2 — or possibly wouldn’t be any more Essential at all. So this patent filing is quite surprising.

You can see the whole patent filing yourself here, but here’s a look at the most relevant part: official drawings of the device:

United States Patent and Trademark Office

We’re no detectives, but that looks like an Essential Phone to us.

Back in May 2018, news broke that Essential reportedly canceled work on the follow-up to the Essential Phone. There was also a rumor that the entire company was going up for sale. Later in the year, rumors began that Essential would be releasing a new product that would be very ambitious and decidedly not a smartphone, and it could make a debut at CES 2019. However, that didn’t appear to happen.

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If you couple these rumors with the problems Essential founder Andy Rubin has been facing as well as the fact that the Essential Phone didn’t sell nearly as well as was hoped, the lack of a sequel to the device made a lot of sense.

But then, here’s this patent.

To be clear, a patent doesn’t necessarily prove anything. It could be that Essential is trying to prevent another company from creating a device that looks like an Essential Phone 2. It could be that Essential is just “saving its spot,” so to speak, for a future Essential Phone which may or may not ever materialize.

However, this should be at least a tiny bit exciting for those of you out there who love your Essential Phone and want to see a new model released.

What do you think? Is Essential going to make a comeback? Let us know in the comments.

NEXT: Essential in 2019: A clouded future