Apple has entered the foldable market with the iPhone Duo, unveiled in September 2026 as the company’s first foldable device. While the launch is recent, its design builds on years of engineering focused on addressing the challenges of flexibility and durability.
Apple’s related patent filings date back nearly a decade before the iPhone Duo launch. Patent activity has fluctuated over the years, with notable peaks in 2021 and 2024, reflecting Apple’s continued work across different aspects of foldable technology. We looked at several patents to understand how the company has approached some of the engineering challenges involved in building foldable devices.
U.S. Patent No. 11,579,722 allows the device to incorporate display layers and touch sensor layers that overlap both transparent and opaque enclosure walls, including the front face, curved or vertical sidewalls, and opposing rear walls. This lets screens wrap completely around the device, allows the user to use the sides and back as touch controls, and supports the whole foldable phone design.
Building on this, U.S. Patent No. 12,164,344 addresses stress and creasing in foldable displays. Rather than relying on a single pivot point, the hinge uses a series of interconnected links, some with crescent-shaped slots that receive pins. As the device folds, the pins move along the slots, shifting the effective rotation axis and helping manage movement of the flexible display.
To protect the fragile screen edges, U.S. Pat. App. No. 2026/0211458 describes a “display trim” that uses a thin protective border around the edge of a foldable device. Instead of a continuous rigid strip, the trim uses small U-shaped metal structures separated by gaps. The gaps are wider near the fold axis to allow greater flexibility and narrower elsewhere to provide additional rigidity.
Another application, U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2026/0236068 introduces a cover layer made of ceramic material. It includes flexible filler regions within relief features to provide strain relief as the device bends and folds. This allows the cover to combine the durability of ceramic materials with the flexibility needed for foldable displays.
Together, these patents illustrate several of the engineering challenges involved in foldable devices, from coordinating movement across a flexible display to protecting the panel as it bends and folds. Apple’s filings extend beyond the hinge itself to the materials and structures surrounding the display, showing the range of technical considerations involved in developing a foldable device.
U.S. Patent No. 11,579,722 was filed on April 7, 2021 and granted on February 14, 2023. Isaac Chan, Chun-Hao Tung, Fletcher Rothkopf, Sunggu Kang, and John Zhong are listed as inventors. Legal representation was provided by Treyz Law Group.
U.S. Patent No. 12,164,344 was filed on July 7, 2022 and granted on December 10, 2024. Scott Krahn, Adam Garelli, Bradley Hamel, Dinesh Mathew, Hoon Sik Kim, Keith Hendren, Robert Cao, Terry Lam, Kevin Robinson, Houtan Farahani, and Tatsuya Sano are listed as inventors. Legal representation was provided by Treyz Law Group.
U.S. Pat. App. No. 2026/0211458 was filed on November 20, 2025 and published on July 23, 2026. Adam Garelli, Robert Cao, Keith Hendren, Ben Hightower, Evan Paul Lee, and Wei Lv are listed as inventors.
U.S. Pat. App. No. 2026/0236068 was filed on March 30, 2026 and published on August 30, 2026. Christopher Jones, Dale Memering, and Christopher Bartlow are listed as inventors.