The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued US12690359B2 to Samsung Display Co., Ltd. on July 21, 2026, covering a display panel that changes its own viewing angle without any add-on film. The granted claims describe a light-emitting panel carrying a layer of solvent between the common electrode and the light-blocking layer, with electrophoretic particles suspended in that solvent and moved sideways by a control electrode. Move the particles one way and the panel scatters light broadly; move them the other way and the panel emits a narrowed cone. It is the same charged-pigment physics that drives e-paper, wired into an emissive display as a switchable privacy mechanism.

Claim 1 is directed to a display device comprising a substrate with defined light-emitting and non-light-emitting areas, a plurality of light control patterns spaced apart on that substrate, a common electrode over those patterns, a light-blocking layer above the common electrode overlapping the non-light-emitting area, the solvent layer between the two, electrophoretic particles dispersed in the solvent and movable in a horizontal direction relative to the substrate, and a first control electrode sitting between the common electrode and the light-blocking layer, also overlapping the non-light-emitting area. The abstract recites the same element list, so the summary description and the operative claim scope agree — the coverage is the stack, not merely the effect.

Claim 2 supplies the switching mechanic: when a first voltage is applied to the common electrode and a second voltage of different magnitude is applied to the first control electrode, the particles move into the space between those two electrodes. That is the whole user-facing feature reduced to a voltage difference. In the wide-angle state the particles sit in the light path and scatter the beam, nullifying the collimating effect of the light control patterns; in the narrow-angle state they retreat under the light-blocking layer and the collimated output passes through unchanged. The panel has no moving parts, no second cell, and no film to laminate.

The specification states the commercial rationale plainly, and it is a bill-of-materials argument rather than an image-quality one.

In such embodiments, since the display device does not include a separate light blocking film for controlling the viewing angle, a thickness of the display device can be reduced and the manufacturing cost of the display device can be reduced.— Display device, US12690359B2

A component removed, not a feature added

Switchable privacy on laptops and phones has generally been sold as an accessory or built as an extra optical layer bonded to the panel. Either approach adds thickness, adds a supplier, and adds a step to module assembly. What the granted claims cover is the alternative: the privacy function is fabricated inside the panel stack itself, alongside the light control patterns and the light-blocking layer that a panel already carries. For a panel maker that ships display modules rather than finished devices, that is a change in what is being sold — the viewing-angle feature becomes an attribute of the module, priced into it, rather than something a set maker sources separately downstream.

The classification reflects the cross-domain nature of the approach. The grant is classified under H10K 59/50, which covers organic light-emitting display arrangements, and simultaneously under G02F 1/167, G02F 1/1677 and G02F 1/1685 — the electrophoretic-device classes that have historically belonged to electronic paper. Sitting in both places is unusual and is the concrete signal here: an electrophoretic subsystem is being treated as a component of an emissive display rather than as a display technology competing with one. The named inventors are Dong-Chul Shin, Yong Seok Kim, Minhee Son, Saet Byeol Shin, Gyujeong Lee and Bekhyun Lim.

Where it sits in the July 21 footprint

Samsung Display received 49 U.S. grants issued on July 21, 2026, indexed across three casing variants of the same corporate name — 28 records, 20 records and one record. Read together, the day's set is heavily weighted toward the physical construction of the panel rather than the driving electronics. US12690375B2 claims a stack with a metal-and-metal-oxide inorganic layer, an encapsulation layer, an organic layer including a quarter-wave plate, and an anti-reflection layer — another instance of an optical function being folded into the encapsulation stack instead of applied as a separate film. US12690369B2 goes at the same problem from the materials side, constraining the difference in thermal expansion coefficient between the polarization film and the protective film to a range of about 0 to 5 micrometers per degree Celsius.

Two more of the day's grants address the panel areas where a display has to stop being uniform. US12690371B2 claims a sub-display area with a transmission region formed by through-holes filled from both sides by planarization layers that contact each other — the structure that lets a camera see through a screen. US12690376B2 covers black patterns placed over the boundary areas of sensor pixel electrodes in a sensor area surrounded by the display area. US12690370B2 claims a corner display area built from extension areas separated by penetration areas where the substrate is absent, which is the geometry problem created by curved and non-rectangular screens.

The process side shows up too. US12690379B2 claims a display panel manufacturing method in which a molybdenum control electrode is dry-etched with a gas mixture of nitrogen trifluoride, oxygen and chlorine, with the resulting electrode characterized by its molybdenum, nitrogen and chlorine content. Coverage that reaches the etch chemistry and the residue it leaves behind is coverage of the fab step, not just the finished article.

Taken as a group, the July 21 grants point toward integration as the organizing idea: optical films, sensor cutouts, corner geometry and now viewing-angle control are all being pulled inside the panel stack and claimed there. US12690359B2 is the clearest example because the function it absorbs — switchable privacy — currently exists in the market as a discrete, separately purchased layer. What the patent locks in is a specific architecture for eliminating that layer, and the enforceable scope runs to the arrangement of solvent, particles and control electrode rather than to the idea of a switchable viewing angle in general.