LG Display Applies to Register ‘ROLED' Trademark, Plausibly for Rollable OLED
LG Display applied Feb. 9 to register the trademark “ROLED,” Patent and Trademark Office records show. LG Display filed a similar application Jan. 15 with South Korean trademark authorities, said the PTO filing. Bob O’Brien, president of Display Supply Chain…
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Consultants (DSCC), thinks the ROLED term applies to rollable OLED, he told us. The panel maker at CES showcased prototypes of a 65-inch Ultra HD OLED that can be rolled up and hidden when not in use. The rolled-up screen’s small size “means that it can be more easily moved and stored, allowing for better space utilization, something existing displays can’t deliver,” it said on the eve of the Las Vegas show. O’Brien saw the CES demo but came away with doubts that “there's much of a market for a rollable TV,” he said. At the show, LG Display representatives “seemed to be poking around at possible uses,” he said. DSCC thinks “the likely first major application for truly flexible displays will be foldable smartphones,” not large-screen TVs that hang on the wall and roll up for easy storage, he said. DSCC CEO Ross Young said a case can be made that a rollable OLED screen “can certainly reduce logistics costs” when placed in a shipping container. As TVs “get even bigger,” a rollable OLED also “can make it more easily delivered into spaces which are hard to get into now,” such as small elevators and tight stairwells, he said. But rollable OLEDs are sure to command a hefty price “premium” over non-rollable OLED displays, and that could well become “an issue” impeding their adoption, said Young. LG Display representatives didn’t comment.