Samsung Patents a Refrigerator Ice Bucket With Its Own Scoop Holder
Where does your ice scoop go after you use it? Samsung's latest patent has an answer, and it's baked right into the ice bucket itself.
What Samsung's built-in scoop holder actually does
Imagine opening your freezer to grab some ice, only to find the scoop buried under a pile of cubes, or worse, nowhere to be found. It's a small annoyance, but a real one that anyone with a freezer ice bin knows well.
Samsung's patent describes an ice bucket that solves this by adding a built-in scoop holder directly to the bucket. The holder is a loop or slot that extends off the side of the container, with a hole sized so the handle of an ice scoop slides through and stays put.
The scoop is always exactly where you left it, attached to the bucket itself. No more digging through ice or leaving the scoop on the counter.
How the holding hole keeps the scoop in place
The patent covers a refrigerator ice system made up of two main parts: an ice maker that produces and drops ice, and an ice bucket that sits below it to catch the ice.
The key addition is what Samsung calls a scoop holder. This is a bracket or loop that extends outward from the main body of the ice container. It includes a holding hole, an opening sized so an ice scoop's handle can pass through it and be held in position without falling out or rattling loose.
The scoop holder is physically integrated with the container body, meaning it moves with the bucket when you pull it out to refill drinks or clean it. The design keeps the scoop accessible and consistently stored in the same place.
- Ice maker generates and discharges ice into the bucket below
- Container body holds the ice in an enclosed receiving space
- Scoop holder extends from the container and grips the scoop handle through a fitted hole
What this means for refrigerator ice bin design
For everyday refrigerator use, this is a storage organization fix more than a technology breakthrough. Loose ice scoops are a genuine friction point in kitchen design, and attaching the scoop directly to the bucket is a tidy solution that keeps the freezer compartment tidier.
From a product standpoint, this is the kind of detail that shows up in premium appliance marketing as a polish feature. If Samsung builds this into future refrigerator models, it could become a small but noticeable differentiator in a crowded market where competitors like LG and Whirlpool are also competing on convenience features.
This is about as routine as patents get. It's a bracket on an ice bucket. That said, the idea is genuinely useful, and the fact that no major appliance maker has standardized scoop storage says more about how incremental this category moves than about the patent's ambition.
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The drawings
13 drawing sheets from US 2026/0210616 A1 · click any drawing to enlarge
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