HP Assigned Four Patents

Arrangement and processing of longitudinal position information on a storage medium
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP, Houston, TX, has been assigned a patent (8,611,039) developed by Donald Fasen, Boise, ID, for an “arrangement and processing of longitudinal position information on a storage medium.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “There is described apparatus (800) to decode longitudinal position (LPOS) information from non-shifted servo elements (a1, a4, a7) and an unbroken sequence of plural shifted servo elements (a2-a3, a5-a6), variations in the relative displacement of the non-shifted and shifted elements encoding the LPOS information. The apparatus is operable to receive signals (905) from a transducer head apparatus (131) that detects the servo elements as they move past the transducer head apparatus, and to process the signals to obtain data (L1, L4, L5, L8) related to relative displacement of mutually adjacent shifted and non-shifted elements within respective ones of the servo bursts, and data (L2, L3, L6, L7) related to relative displacement of mutually non-adjacent shifted and non-shifted elements within the respective ones of the servo bursts, and also to process the data to determine LPOS bit values corresponding to the respective ones of the servo bursts.“

The patent application was filed on April 29, 2009 (13/260,174).

Storage media cartridge handling apparatus
with up-down drive arrangement disengageable with accessor carriage
Hewlett-Packard Development, Houston, TX, has been assigned a patent (8,611,042) developed by Gregg S. Schmidtke, Kelly J. Reasoner, Fort Collins, CO, and Jeff Kato, Greeley, CO, for a “storage media cartridge handling apparatus with up-down drive arrangement disengageable with accessor carriage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Storage media cartridge handling apparatus is disclosed that comprises: a frame to support first and second laterally spaced arrays of cartridge access locations extending in a front-back direction, and at least one laterally extending further array of cartridge access locations, the cartridge access locations facing inwardly of the frame; an up-down drive arrangement disengageably engageable with an accessor carriage to move the carriage up and down in a region between the first and second arrays, to access locations in the first, second and further arrays; and at least one lateral displacement path within the frame along which the carriage can exit and enter the frame laterally. A storage media cartridge library and an accessor carriage are also disclosed.”

The patent application was filed on Jan. 29, 2009 (13/146,933).

Making physical copy of data at remote storage device
Hewlett-Packard Development, Houston, TX,  has been assigned a patent (8,612,705) developed by Stephen Gold, Fort Collins, CO, and Alexandre Lenart, Palo Alto, CA, for “making a physical copy of data at a remote storage device.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Systems and methods relating to making a physical copy at a remote storage device of data on a local storage device in response to a command from a backup application operatively associated with the local storage device are disclosed. An exemplary method comprises replicating the data from the local storage device on the remote storage device. The method also comprises copying the data replicated at the remote storage device to a physical medium operatively associated with the remote storage device in response to a command from the backup application operatively associated with the local storage device. “

The patent application was filed on July 29, 2009 (13/260,104).

Securing access to a HDD with an enhanced security mode
Hewlett-Packard Development, Houston, YTX, has been assigned a patent (8,627,109) developed by Jeff W. Wolford, Spring, TX, for a “method of securing access to a HDD drive of a computer system with an enhanced security mode.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method of enhancing security of a storage component communicating with a host processor over a bus comprises: receiving from the bus by the storage component one of a security unlock command, set password command, security disable command and security erase command along with a password associated therewith; determining a security state in which the storage component is operating at reception of the received command; determining if an enhanced security mode is enabled at reception of the received command; and performing security steps of the received command based the determined security state and the determined security mode.”

The patent application was filed on April 3, 2006 (11/396,848).