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Microsoft continues to work on a Folding Smartphone while Samsung Wins Patent for a Scrollable Phone or Mobile TV

1 99 COVER MSFT HINGE FOR FOLDABLE DEVICES

 

In April Patently Mobile posted a Microsoft patent report titled "Three Smartphone Patents from Microsoft illustrate Bendable, Foldable & Moveable Body Form Factors." Our cover graphic above illustrates the 'foldable' form factor patent figure found in that report. Today our brief report focuses on a Microsoft patent filing published by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office relating to a hinge design that will support their folded smartphones and/or tablets using a system that partially uses magnets as noted in the patent figures below. Microsoft's Surface hardware team could take advantage of this invention for their own product lines or decide to license it out to their hardware partners. The second patent that we briefly cover is a one for a Scrollable Samsung mobile device.

 

2af x99 smartphone hinge

3af 88 msft hinge patent

4AX 99 FIG. 2 MSFT HINGE

 

The mechanics of the new hinge will naturally be beneath the surface of the device. The patent images are designed to simply illustrate where the hinge will be set within the smartphone casing.

 

Microsoft filed patent application 20170145725 back in November 2015. The filing was published by the U.S. Patent Office last week for public viewing. If you want to get into the detailing of this hinge system, then check out the patent filing here. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.

 

Samsung Wins Patent for a Scrollable Device

 

5AF X 99 SAMSUNG SCROLLABLE DEVICE

Samsung has been working on a scrollable device / smartphone for some time. The last three patent filings for them could be reviewed here: one, two and three).

 

Last week Samsung was granted a patent for a scrollable device with a rollable display including a flexible display panel that displays an image. The user is able to wind and unwind the display using the two handles as noted above in FIG. 1.

 

Samsung's granted patent is focused on the mechanics of the device and not the end use of it, though other patents referring to the scrollable device (as linked to above) describe the device as being able to be a smartphone, tablet, mobile TV and beyond.

 

Samsung's granted patent     9,659,512 was initially filed in 2015 and granted to them last week by the U.S. Patent Office.

 

A Note for Tech Sites covering our Report: We ask tech sites covering our report to kindly limit the use of our graphics to one image. Thanking you in advance for your cooperation. 

 

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