PICS: LG files latest patent for folding smartphone

Johannesburg - South Korean electronics manufacturer LG has become the latest company to hint at a mobile device with a bendable display - as companies show an inkling toward folding phones. 

The popular phone-maker has filed a patent for a mobile phone with a screen that folds with the World Intellectual Property Organisation, a United Nations body with the aim "to encourage creative activity, to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world". 

The Hague Express Database, which is updated weekly, includes bibliographical data and reproductions of industrial designs relating to international registrations featured the patent and images of what could be a new smartphone from LG. 

• READ: Here's why your future smartphone could be bendable

From the images displayed on the website, the patent shows a mobile phone which expands its display seamlessly. 

But LG are not the first to file a patent for a folding mobile phone, as South Korean rival, Samsung secured a patent for the design of a "foldable" device that opens and closes similar to a book, in January 2017.

If LG are to produce a smartphone with a screen that bends, it's likely the company could bolt on its OLED TV technology to make the smartphone a reality. 

It has been no secret that numerous electronics manufacturers, such as Samsung and LG, have been working on OLED displays with many TVs already being sold in the country. 

As reported by Fin24 previously, OLED TVs, which are as thin as just four credit cards stacked on top of each other, have been touted by LG as being the best on the market for home viewing experience.

OLED (or organic light-emitting diode) displays make use of molecules and light produced by electricity to form a display picture. The new technology results in a clearer, sharper picture.

• READ: TVs that can roll up and fold away with dazzling graphics

OLED also produces pure black, which results in brighter and more vivid colours. However, the most interesting characteristic about OLED is that it is a more malleable material that can be bent or wrapped around objects. 

But beating both LG and Samsung to the rat race, in 2016 a video of a bendable Xiaomi smartphone had been circulating the internet – with speculation that it could be the first one to be released. 

In the leaked video posted by numerous sources online, a person is seen scrolling through the device’s menu, with exclusive apps by the Chinese smartphone maker, seen on the screen.