Flexible Tablets
According to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and US-based IT news site Phone Arena on January 3, Samsung Electronics was granted a design patent named Portable Multimedia Terminal (Patent US D696,693 S) on December 31, 2013. The patent was first filed in September 2012.
The patent shows a visual rendering of a tablet that can be folded like a book or notebook using a flexible display.
The IT news site wrote, “We do hope that once (and if) such tech becomes more than a feverish dream of Samsung’s display department, it’ll go through rounds of miniaturization that will see to it that smartphones don’t have to miss out on all the foldable fun."
However, it is going to take a long time for this product to be available on the market, in that an advance in technology for panels is necessary for this patent to be realized.
Recently, Samsung applied for a patent from the USPTO for a curved smartphone capable of bending length-wise (US D696,216 S), after the launch of the Galaxy Round, the world’s first curved display smartphone. According to a patent specification released by the USPTO, the design is similar to that of the Galaxy Note 3. A slot for the S pen indicates that the device belongs to one of the Galaxy Note series.