The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Samsung a patent for a Galaxy smartphone with a display with an extended bent edge that has one or more physical buttons protruding through the bent edge glass. Buttons have traditionally been set to protrude through a metal side edge, so this is definitely different.
However, the question now becomes will Samsung consider the direction of their granted patent issued today or their latest patent application that we covered last month wherein it showed a Galaxy smartphone with side bent glass having touch controls?
The latter would be able to better compete against Huawei's Mate 30 smartphone which introduced touch controls on the bent side glass edge.
Until we know which way Samsung has decided to go, we have to report on what today's granted patent focused on which is physical buttons that protrude through the glass side edge of a Galaxy smartphone as described below.
In Samsung's patent FIG. 3A below we're able to see that the entire first face #3001 of the electronic device #300 and a portion of a side face 3002 or a second face 3003 including the side face 3002 may be defined as a display region. So the button #320 seen protruding through the side is protruding through the edge glass and not a metal edge which I believe is a first for Samsung.
Samsung's second patent FIG. 5A illustrates when an input unit is applied to a bent display and the input unit #517 (button) is exposed through the display 514.
The next-gen smartphone being described may include a new wave of sensors. Some of the sensors listed include the following: a gesture sensor, a gyro sensor, an atmospheric pressure sensor, a magnetic sensor, an acceleration sensor, a grip sensor, a red, green, blue (RGB) sensor, a biometric sensor, a temperature/humidity sensor, an illumination sensor, and an ultraviolet (UV) sensor.
Additionally or alternatively, the sensor module may include an E-node sensor, an electromyography (EMG) sensor, an electroencephalogram (EEG) sensor, an electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor, and/or a fingerprint sensor, and a control circuit for controlling at least one or more sensors.
There are other attributes that may be included in this future Galaxy smartphone. Samsung describes that "the display may further include a control circuit for controlling the panel, the hologram device and/or the projector. The hologram device uses an interference of light and displays a stereoscopic image in the air.
Samsung was granted patent 10,561,027 today. It was originally filed in Q1 2018 in the U.S. and Q1 2017 in South Korea.
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