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Samsung files patents for a scrollable smartphone, a folding tablet, and more

Samsung is quite smitten with foldable, bendable, and now even scrollable displays. New patent filings published by Patently Mobile are worth checking out.
By
November 30, 2015

Over the past year, we’ve seen an assortment of Samsung patents filed for all kinds of digital devices that most can dare only dream of. The latest offerings are perhaps the most impressive yet. They were discovered by Patently Mobile, who has requested that tech sites covering the story limit use of the designs to just one image. To that end, we will discuss the main find, however readers are strongly encouraged to visit the source link to see all the other offerings.

Samsung Scrollable Patent

The above patent was filed last year in Korea, and according to the source, this past May in the USA. According to the diagram above, the right side (flat) portion will pull out (unfurl) from the base. Patently Mobile writes that, “Samsung notes that the flexible display may include an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) or a flexible LCD display that replaces a glass substrate with a plastic film.”

 

In additional pictures found on the website, diagrams can be seen with the device fully extended and showing two different elements on each half of the screen: on one side weather widgets and such, and on the right a phone dialer. Yet another image shows the extended “scroll” folded in half thus making it almost like a book, or similar in shape to a device like Lenovo’s Yoga Tab series which also makes use of a barrel-style base.

samsung flexible display patent
From an earlier patent-related post covered by Patently Mobile.

Other findings on the Patently Mobile link, unrelated to this specific product design, include another look at what could very well be Project Valley, and yet another design for a bendable smartphone that is seen folding over on itself, almost like a clip-on belt carrying case and cover for a smartphone.

We highly encourage readers to check out all the designs. Clearly Samsung is thinking quite big when it comes to foldable products, and these patents showcase that. We would like to point out that these are ultimately just conceptual diagrams: there is no guarantee any of them will leave a testing laboratory if they are even prototyped at all. Still, the sky’s the limit when it comes to digital dreams…