Boise State University Assigned Patent

Boise State University, Boise, ID, has been assigned a patent (8,670,267) developed by Chad S. Watson, William B. Knowlton, and Peter Mullner, Boise, ID, for “storage methods and devices.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A data storage method includes writing data to a ferromagnetic shape-memory material in its ferromagnetic state, the material exhibiting more than two stable states. A data storage device includes a non-volatile memory element containing a ferromagnetic shape-memory alloy in a martensite state, the shape-memory alloy being ferromagnetic in a plurality of stable states of the memory element.“

The patent application was filed on March 19, 2012 (13/424,122).