Apple’s Patent For Foldable Phone With Flexible OLED Display Granted By U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Apple has been working on a foldable display for use on a smartphone since at least 2014, a newly published patent has revealed. Reports surfaced that Apple was granted a patent on Tuesday for "flexible display devices," which could someday lead to a bendable iPhone.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted an Apple's U.S. Patent No. 9,504,170  on Tuesday that shows the company has been researching a foldable iPhone design that uses a flexible OLED display. The proposed designs envision a foldable device with an organic light-emitting diode screen. Like clamshell cellphones popularized by Motorola in the 1990s, Apple's proposed design also folds in two when not in use for easy storage.

AppleInsider first reported that Apple's version utilizes a number of flexible parts including an OLED and a hinged metal support structure, made in one example of a nickel and titanium alloy known as nitinol, which has special elastic properties. Flexible polymers are used in alternative embodiments.

Apple envisions that the upper housing could include cameras, display controllers, speaker modules and light sensors, with the lower section of the chassis containing microphones, CPU and graphics processor, along with vibrating and other typical smartphone mechanisms, according to Mac Rumors.

The two sections connect via a single- or multi-shaft hinge that allows them to rotate relative to each other, while flexible printed circuit boards keep the connection intact. The flexible display meanwhile runs over the two sections and includes extra material to support two or more folding configurations.

It can be noted that last June, Lenovo showed off a flexible phone prototype that you could wrap around your wrist. Meanwhile, Samsung was reported to be working on two bendable models, according to Apple Insider. Apple's foldable iPhone patent was first filed for in July 2014 and credits Fletcher R. Rothkopf, Andrew J. M. Janis and Teodor Dabov as its inventors.

Apple did not yet respond to a request for comment.