US Patent 7786978 Sensing device having force and orientation sensors

A sensing device is provided having an image sensor for sensing coded tags disposed on an interactive surface, a force sensor configured to sense a force applied to the interactive surface by the sensing device to generate force data indicative of the force, a processor configured to generate, using at least one sensed coded tag, indicating data, and a transmitter configured to communicate the indicating and force data to a computer system. Each coded tag encoding data identifies an orientation of that coded tag. The indicating data is indicative of a rotational orientation of the sensing device relative to interactive surface.