Although we know that foldable or exotic smartphones aren't on Samsung's roadmap for 2017 because Samsung can't risk any mistakes due to the Note 7 fires of 2016, it's still important to keep reporting on the work that the Samsung engineers are working on and pointing out their smartphone design wins. This month Samsung was awarded two distinctly different design patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. One smartphone design illustrates a flexible display that could fold in half like a booklet while the second design covers a smartphone with an expandable slide-out display so that watching TV shows, movies and playing games could be done in wide-screen mode.

Unlike "patent applications," design patents published by the U.S. or Foreign Patent and Trademark Offices don't reveal pertinent information about a particular design. All we get to see are a number of patent figures illustrating the actual design as you'll see in-part below.

A Smartphone with Single Flexible Display that's Foldable













A Smartphone with an Expandable Slide-Out Display





Next weekend I'll be reporting on Samsung utility patents covering smartphones with scrollable displays and more – so stay tuned.

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.



