Microsoft’s New Patent Hints At A Communication Device That Can Be Folded in Half

Microsoft’s working on devices with foldable displays too.

A patent filed back in 2015 by the tech giant Microsoft provides a telling hint of the direction that the company’s phone division might be heading towards, for a new range of mobile products in the possible future.

The patent is for –

• A device with a multi-layered screen engineered with a number of panels with curved edges.
• Where all the panels are conjoined with a hinge which moves in any direction
• Where the hinges along with the panels shall be resting on a solid surface — upper layer, much like a book,
• A specific focus on the ‘obscurity’ of the hinges, thereby restricting the visibility of the hinges, with special display devices on the curved edges of the panels, And
• Utilization of various parts or the device as a whole, which if manipulated to serve different functions, could be made into a phone, a tablet or any other communication device much like Microsoft’s own Surface Pro 4.

The points above clearly shed light upon the key facets of the patent and provides significant indication as to where Microsoft wishes to devote their R&D resources.

However, Microsoft is not alone in following this direction — there already are products that have hit the market like Lenovo’s C-Plus (a bendable phone that can be worn around the wrist like a watch), or are almost ready for launch — Samsung is also scheduled to introduce a new bendable phone in the third quarter, and LG has been known to be working on bendable OLED screens for a while now.

Perhaps, the only credible difference between the intention behind Microsoft’s patent, and what has already been released in the market, is the focus on the “obscurity” of the hinges.

The patent clearly states — “In order to reduce and/or obscure the visibility of a support structure for a display panel, the present disclosure provides example display devices including curved or otherwise bent regions for directing light to a user’s eye when the user’s gaze is directed to a support structure at an edge of the display panel. In this way, when a user is viewing a region occupied by the support panel, the user may instead see light from the display panel showing the displayed objects”.

While it all seems the same, in the world of technology, even the smallest of changes can lead to tectonic shift in the field. But, what is much more important is that the intentions behind the filing of the patent are exercised upon!

The document has been filed by Timothy Large and Steven Bathiche, two Microsoft employees, who have filed other patents as well. However despite being published, no significant progresses have been made on those patents, and in some cases, have been stalled.

Similarly, thousands of patents are filed every year by resourceful companies but are not exercised upon with the same zeal. So, the expectation that rumored device would definitely be worked upon, and that a tangible product would emerge in the near future, is still a question that is begging to be answered.

Go do it, Microsoft — get ahead!

Originally published at Chip-Monks.