The vertical position is interesting! If I was to design a portable gaming system I'd give it exactly that mechanic. The handheld would feature a slide-open mechanic to give you access to the lower screen and buttons or could be used in screen-only mode:
- Hold the portable in one hand for smartphone style (no buttons, just one screen, like a smartphone)
- hold it horizontally to play hybrid games (no buttons, one screen)
- Slide it open to reveal the second screen, buttons and control sticks (DS style)

You could play Pokemon with one hand on the bus while standing, play it in widescreen mode once you found a seat without being embarrassed (looks like you're playing on a smartphone after all!) and when you get home you slide open your handheld and continue playing with buttons. Of course, software would have to switch seamlessly from one-hand mode to horizontal mode to dual screen mode.

This would give Nintendo the opportunity to release DeNa's smartphone games for its portable console (after all, you can play on it like you play on a smartphone) and show that dedicated systems are preferable: Some games will be smartphone / handheld multiplatform releases but controlling the games on your dedicated device is way easier, because of the second screen and the buttons + control sticks. At the same time the handheld would attract mass market ("casual") customers with games that can be played without the use of physical buttons. It would be easy to understand, like the DS was. But core gamers would still have all the features they want.

Take Mario Kart as an example: Smartphone gamers can play it with one hand (like some people preferred the Wii wheel in Mario Kart Wii). Hardcore gamers will slide the handheld open and make use of the control stick and the map on the bottom screen.

So, Mickey Amiibo confirmed? :P

This looks interesting, although I'm not sure I'm a fan of them abondoning the dual screen clamshell design, especially if (like suggested in OP) you have to turn it wierdly for backwards compatibility. A lot of 3ds games actually utilize all the buttons, so having them all over the place instead of left and right of the screen might be ankward...
Also I assume this patent is specific to the sensor and the screenturning capabilities and does not represent the final button Layout, otherwise I'll be very worried about seeing the missing thumbstick/c-Stick, also this is the second patent we see with only two face buttons.
The sqares on the bottom/right side are pretty clearly select/home/start, though.

Sooooo Amiibos New Disks confirmed ?

Yeah I'm starting to wonder about that too. I imagine there are several patents out there that go unused.

Internet's gotta speculate regardless.

They may have to abandon the clamshell design for now because of heat issues.

Something the size of the 3DS really would not be able to run at 4-6 watts without overheating, I'm pretty sure.

It's the same reason the A8X and A9X Apple processors are only in the larger iPads for Apple and not in the iPhone (even the big iPhone). They run too hot.

I think they could make something smaller than the Wii U tablet, because that has a lot of wasted space on it, make it about the thickness of a PSVita (original) and that will allow them though to put a very high-end chip into the system and a large battery to power it.

If Nintendo has a chip similar in raw horsepower to the Apple A9X but customized expressly for gaming ... that's going to be awesome. I hope they go for it. It will also make sharing high-end 3D games easier with the console NX, so it's to Nintendo's benefit to kinda go back to the GameCube philosophy a little bit of more powerful hardware.

Considering all the patent trolls that they had and still come across, I'd say the opposite.

Nah, it'll have two screens. This is just an example to specifically show off the new potrait orientation functionality.

I think you're going to be proven wrong on this but we'll see. You simply cannot put a high end portable chip into something the size of even the 3DS XL and not have heat issues and a unified platform needs a high end portable IMO. Otherwise the console version is going to have to be crippled in horsepower too, because games will not scale up and down. 

They'll figure something out. If it were ultimately between keeping two screens or being more powerful, they'll keep the two screens. That's not even up for debate, especially with the console variant effectively confirmed to have a second screen now.

"They'll figure something out", lol like they'll find some magical Nintendium trasisitor technology. There's nothing to figure out. Even at 14nm you cannot get Wii U level horsepower into a casing that small. It will have to run at 4w-5w minimum. 

You probably need the screen on the console controller just to ensure feature compatibility with a handheld of any type, that has nothing to do with whether or not the handheld has two screens or one. If portable NX has Mario Maker 2.0, well then the console version kinda needs a screen too for that game to be playable. That doesn't definitevely prove anything. 

Besides it's one thing to have rinky dink tiny 3-4.5 inch screens x2 when your graphics capability is ass like the DS/3DS are, but if they actually have a nice chip in the portable NX, for goodness sake, why wouldn't you want a nice large display for those bigger experiences? To me it just makes no sense. Let the past be the past, it's not 2004 anymore, get with the times.