14 DAY TRIAL // LG and Samsung are not the only companies that own patents for curved or flexible display. Although not many would have thought about it, Microsoft owns a patent for a “flexible mobile display,” which dates from back 2011.
Four years ago, few would believe that a smartphone with a flexible or curved display would actually exist and will be available for purchase on the market after just a few years.
Samsung was the first break the standards with its Galaxy Round, but LG was in fact the first company to make a smartphone with flexible display available to the world.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has just recently bought itself a part of a company (Nokia) that was in the mobile phone business for a very long time. Since then, the Redmond-based company was focusing on Windows Phone smartphones.
A Microsoft smartphone with flexible display is possible in the future
If Microsoft wants to actually start prototyping a smartphone that packs a flexible display, the patent spotted by WMPU is where they could start. Here is the description of the entire patent:
“In general, a 'Flexible Mobile Display,' as described herein, provides various techniques for implementing a flexible display for mobile phones or other handheld or portable electronic or computing devices that, in various embodiments, is foldable and/or rollable.
“Consequently, the Flexible Mobile Display provides a large display in a small form factor that is user extensible. Advantageously, production of the Flexible Mobile Display uses an adaptation of various currently available production techniques and is expected to be relatively low cost to produce.
“Additionally, in various embodiments, the Flexible Mobile Display also includes a low cost touch or multi-touch sensing mechanism that can be easily integrated into the overall system.”
Are we going to see a Microsoft smartphone with flexible display? Definitely not in the near future since Microsoft is now focusing on launching Windows 10, but starting next year perhaps the company will start to look into it.
