A patent recently granted to Microsoft points to an interesting new set of touch capabilities for the Surface Pen. As detailed in a patent that was first filed by in 2016 and was recently granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office, (via MSPU), Microsoft details a method for making the Surface Pen's retention clip touch-sensitive.

As described in the patent, this could open up new ways of interacting with a PC connected to the pen. The most obvious use would be to let the clip to act like a mouse's scroll wheel, allowing a user to scroll up and down a page or image with a swipe. That could come in handy if you're trying to use the pen as your only input device, for whatever reason.