Granted, or merely published? Both US11061437B2 and US11073863B2, issued days apart in July 2021 to Samsung Display, carry the B2 kind code — these are issued grants with enforceable rights, not pending applications. The CPC core — G06F 1/1652 for the flexible display, plus G06F 1/1641 and G06F 1/1681 for folding and support — places them in the panel-and-structure layer of the foldable stack.
The strategic shift these grants record is from hinge to panel. The earliest foldable IP concentrated on the mechanical hinge — how to bend the device without bending the screen. By 2021, the harder, more defensible problem had moved into the foldable display itself: how the panel survives repeated folding, and how the support structure beneath it manages the bend radius without creasing or cracking.
What these read on is the book-style and clamshell foldable phone, the category Samsung's Galaxy Z line defined. As the display maker for its own devices and a supplier to others, Samsung Display has the incentive to own the panel-and-support IP rather than just the hinge, and the 2021 grants are that ownership made concrete.
The granted-versus-pending distinction is not academic here. The foldable space is thick with published applications that may never issue; treating those as equivalent to grants overstates a portfolio's strength. These specific patents are issued, which means they are present obstacles for a competitor and present assets for Samsung — a different posture entirely from a pending claim.
Scope, stated carefully: each grant's enforceable reach is its own independent claim, and the family shares a theme without forming a single monopoly. A foldable that solves the bend-and-support problem through a materially different structure may avoid any given member. But the density of grants raises the design-around cost across the category.
For an R&D strategist, the lesson is to track where the grants — not just the filings — cluster. By 2021 the issued foldable IP had migrated into the panel, and that is where freedom-to-operate analysis for any new foldable should start.