Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a granted Samsung patent relating to rollable display device that include a flexible display panel that can be rolled up for retraction into a housing and unrolled for use in a flat configuration. This is considered a next generation display device that could provide consumers with a compact form factor. The invention is deadly focused on the mechanics of the rollable display design and doesn't veer off to discuss any wireless capability. Therefore the design could either be a tablet and/or a smartphone. For now Samsung keeps a little mystery as to the final design.

Samsung notes that "One inventive aspect is a display device having a flexible display panel that can be maintained to be substantially flat when the flexible display panel is unrolled.

Another aspect is a display device including a flexible display panel; a jig connected to one end of the flexible display panel and having an outer circumferential surface on which the flexible display panel is rolled there around; a handle connected to the other end of the flexible display panel; a housing accommodating the flexible display panel rolled around the jig; and a support unit interposed between the handle and the housing, wherein the support unit includes: a frame guide having at least a track groove on at least a surface of the frame guide; and a support frame having one end rotatably coupled to the handle or the housing and the other end slidably coupled to the track groove of the frame guide to move there along."

Samsung's patent FIGS. 16 and 17 below are schematic perspective views illustrating a sequential process in which a flexible display panel of a display device is unrolled

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