I've read a number of interpretations of the application, some of them suggesting this is an Apple invention. Clearly it isn't. The patent application attempts to cover future form factors and that's what makes it so interesting.
Read it alongside Apple's applications for smart shoes and smart garment patents and you can see the smartphone, as we know it, begin to disappear.
This patent application is much more concerned with viewing and interacting with the device, almost as a console, than it is with actually communicating. And it has a high level of user customization proposed.
It may raise question marks over the use of a patent that depends heavily on competitor technology, though.
Apple's claim is for the method of folding and unfolding the display and for being able to display information on its various surfaces, along with a sensor system that detects the user's field of vision and activates the screen accordingly.
It will be possible to remove the display from its glass enclosure and to flatten it. The application also suggests that these devices could be connected together or could, for example be connected to an "improved" camera.
All that makes it heavily dependent on the screen technology, not just its form but also its durability.
For that reason the patent application looks as though it could be storing up trouble.
The display is an AMOLED (so that it can light up discreet parts of the real estate and doesn't have to go on/off with the whole display for every action) and both the screen and the glass are flexible. That suggests it will have to use Corning's flexible glass and Samsung's flexible durable displays.
Samsung is almost certain to want to explore different form factors too and has already demonstrated curved displays.
A couple of points to make about it. Apple looks as though it is on the way to OLED displays despite CEO Tim Cook's public dislike of them. Cook has several times backed the Apple trademarked Retina display over OLED. But it looks as though Apple is changing its mind.
The website OLED-Info.com points out that Apple recently hired an ex-LG executive who specializes in OLED technology.
In past years we reported on many OLED patents by Apple including a flexible OLED based haptic display, OLED based BLUs for LCDs, OLED control schemes and others. A few weeks ago it was reported that Apple has hired a new executive into its Display group - Dr. Jueng Jil Lee, a former research fellow at LG Display, who apparently was involved with OLED TV printing technology research.
The new design points to a device that is highly display centric, which has some people speculating on whether it will itself be wearable.
Given that Apple seems to be headed towards the use of competitor technology, however, it raises a different issue. The patenting process looks as though it has "court case" marked on it sometime in the near future, if it prevents other companies from exploring flexible form factors.
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