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The Long History of Flexible OLED Patents
December 10, 2018
 
Occasionally, we report on interesting patents filed by companies involved in the OLED business, but almost all patents remain undeveloped, except for ~3% of patents that are filed each year (~630,000 in 2015).   With the buzz around ‘foldable’ smartphones increasing as CES 2019 and Mobile World Congress approach, and ‘leaked’ device images and specifications appearing on a regular basis, much of what is being spoken regarding foldable mobile devices has been seen in patents over the last few years. Samsung Display and Samsung Electronics have been pumping out patents related to bendable, flexible, foldable, rollable, and stretchable OLED displays for years, and while most sit in the archives at the US Patent Office, one or two are quite interesting.  Most recently, Samsung Display was granted two consecutive patents for a ‘rollable display device’ and a ‘rollable display device with separate rollers for display and display window’, reminiscent of two images from eight years ago.
 

The images showed a US Army soldier with a wrist mounted OLED display, one of eight that were delivered to the US Army at Fort Dix, New Jersey for testing in 2010.  The 4.3” displays were produced on a thin metal foil and could wrap around the curvature of the soldiers wrist in order to provide information that could be used on the battlefield.  The devices were supplied by Universal Display (OLED) and were produced by LG Display. Since there is little known on what might attract consumer interest when it comes to flexible displays, and while Samsung and others continue to file and receive patent applications for a wide variety of flexible formats, most are just for protection.  Whether the answer is a foldable or a rollable one, cycle in the display business has begun that will likely continue until we plug communication devices directly into brain.  There will be many iterations, cycles, proclamations of history making proportions and warnings of doom when it comes to flexible displays, but just as the invention of a mobile communication device changed the way society works, flexible displays will change the way displays are used, and if patents are any example, even just 3% of them, we expect to see flexible displays in a wide variety of new formats over the next two years.  
 
 
Figure 1: OLED Flexible Display -- Circa 2010 ​

Source: Universal Display

Figure 2: OLED Flexible Display and Roller

Source: USPO, Samsung Display

Figure 3: OLED "Pull-out" Flexible Display– 

Source: US Patent Office, Samsung Display