We've seen multiple companies begin implementing fingerprint scanner gestures on their smartphones in the past. Huawei/Honor has been known for these gestures for quite a while, and many were hoping that it would be included in the Nexus 6P. This never happened, but Google was able to bring the feature with this year's Pixel and Pixel XL. However, it seems Samsung now has a patent for this type of functionality… at least in its home country of South Korea.
Samsung had actually filed for this fingerprint scanner gesture feature two whole years ago. So they have been thinking about this type of feature for a while now. The patent illustrations show off a different implementation than we've seen on smartphones today though. Instead of using the swipe gestures to trigger the notification shade, like we see on the Pixel phones, it looks like Samsung wants to use them for quick access to certain applications.
The patent shows someone swiping up on the fingerprint scanner to launch the web browser, swiping to the left to launch a saved contact, and swiping to the right to bring up your messaging application. If implemented, it's possible that these fingerprint scanner gestures could be customizable within Samsung's TouchWiz OEM skin, but we'll have to wait and see how the company plans to introduce it before we know for sure.
Just because Samsung now owns a patent for this implementation of fingerprint scanner gestures in their home country, doesn't mean we will see it in a product they will sell. Companies own lots of patents for things that are never used in their own products. So this might just be something that Samsung wants to keep in their trove of patents, but we could see it brought to life in an upcoming smartphone or tablet.
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