Carnegie Mellon University Assigned Patent

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA has been assigned a patent (8,289,659) developed by James A. Bain, and William C. Messner, Pittsburgh, PA for "systems and methods for magnetic head element translation."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Systems and methods for controlling the position of a magnetic head element and/or the magnetic head element to media spacing in a data storage device. At least one microactuator is embedded in a hard disk drive slider laterally displaced from the magnetic head element. Activation of the microactuator translates the magnetic head element in a lateral direction."

The patent application was filed on March 5, 2010 (12/718,674).