Apple Invents Specialized Display Coatings for Foldable iDevices

Patently Apple reports that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that specifies coatings that have flake pigments needed to protect the display of a device such as a future iPhone that is capable of bending in half without damage. 

“Apple’s invention covers coatings formed from polymer with pigment flakes that may be applied with uniform thickness to curved substrates such as curved windows using liquid polymer coating techniques such as spraying, printing, and dipping, may be applied to glass layers without reducing glass strength, and may be sufficiently flexible to accommodate display flexing (e.g., when the coating is applied to an array of organic light-emitting diode pixels that flexes as a flexible device housing is bent),” says Patently Apple at https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2018/12/apple-invents-specialized-display-coatings-designed-to-support-future-foldable-idevices.html

The website reports that Apple’s patent illustrates how an iPhone may “be a bendable device having a flexible display.”

“Coating 22 (e.g., a coating on pixel array 16 and/or a coating on housing 12 or other layer(s) in device 10) may be formed from a polymer containing flake pigments and may be sufficiently flexible to withstand bending during use without cracking or delaminating.”

Patently Apple says Apple’s patent application was filed in March 2018 and published in late December by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.