Samsung prepping foldable tablets to move away from iPad-like design?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtN_TkZUOt4]

A patent application recently published by the US Patent & Trademark Office (via Patently Apple) shows Samsung’s plans to explore tablet designs radically different than the iPad-like design of the their Galaxy family of slate PCs. This time, the company is exploring foldable, book-like tablets that could very well implement some of their foldable OLED tech shown in the video above from CES 09.

While at first glance you might think of Sony’s recently announced foldable Tablet P device, this is far from it. The main difference is the patent clearly outlines a device with both halves of the foldable display appearing as a single, seamless screen when viewed from above. This opposed to Sony’s Tablet P which simply incorporates two separate displays into a book-like design.

Patently Apple explains:

“Samsung states that the invention could be applied to two, three or more touch screen displays could constitute one screen. Samsung assures that “the whole screen of the foldable touch screen display apparatus may look continuous when seen from above.” So the seams will be almost undetectable. To pull that off, Samsung describes the foldable touch screen display having a transparent plate disposed at an upper part of the second display panel to cover an upper part of the first display panel.”

There is no evidence suggesting that this new design will become the focus of Samsung’s tablet endeavours, but with pressures from Apple regarding design related patent infringement in courtrooms across the globe, the company could definitely benefit from some real innovation in the tablet PC realm.