Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Computer Inc. sought patent protection for a device that may combine a mobile phone with its iPod music player as speculation intensified that the company may sell a so-called iPhone as soon as January.

In a patent application, made public today, Apple claims it developed a new casing for a wireless device that can operate as an iPod and a mobile phone. The application was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in August, and is related to an application filed in July 2004.

Analysts have anticipated Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs will parlay the success of iPod into another line of products. Piper Jaffray Co.'s Gene Munster and Benjamin Reitzes of UBS AG said this week that Jobs may introduce an iPod merged with a phone at the company's MacWorld conference in January.

``This is another piece of evidence that the iPhone is coming,'' Munster said from his Minneapolis office. He rates the shares ``outperform'' and doesn't own any. ``This shows they're trying to build a patent moat around the design for the iPhone.''

Shares of Cupertino, California-based Apple fell 14 cents to $91.66 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. The stock has gained 28 percent this year.

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling declined to comment on the patent application.

More Sales

The phone may sell for an average of $300 and add as much as $1.5 billion to annual sales, said New York-based Reitzes in a report this month. He is the second-ranked computer analyst by Institutional Investor magazine. Keith Bachman of Banc of America Securities predicted in a report last week that Apple may sell 3.9 million phones in 2007 and 6.7 million in 2008.

Apple's application describes a ``tube-like'' device made using zirconia and alumina and that would be ``cost effective, smaller, lighter, stronger and aesthetically more pleasing than current'' designs.

Using those ceramic materials would result in a ``highly scratch-resistant surface,'' according to the application. Zirconia could be used to create cases in a variety of colors, including white, black, navy blue, ivory, brown, dark blue, light blue, platinum and gold.

The application was one of three made public today. One is for a camera hatch that is attached to computers. The second is for a graphical user interface for Web pages. A fourth patent application, made public Nov. 23, relates to the use of podcasts on portable media devices.

To contact the reporters on this story: Connie Guglielmo in San Francisco at cguglielmo1@bloomberg.net; Susan Decker in Washington at sdecker1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 30, 2006 17:17 EST