Palo Alto Research Center Assigned Patent

Palo Alto Research Center, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (11,249,941) developed by Unidad, Jerome, Johnson, David Mathew, San Francisco, CA, Karatay, Elif, and Chintapalli, Mahati, Mountain View, CA, for “exabyte-scale data storage using sequence-controlled polymers.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method of storing digital data in non-biological sequence-controlled polymers includes converting a digital data file into a monomer sequence, synthesizing polymer chains according to the monomer sequence, and encapsulating the polymer chains into microfluidic droplets and providing the microfluidic droplets with addresses. A polymer data storage system has a first converter to convert digital data to a polymer sequence, a polymer synthesizer to produce polymer chains according to a pre-determined monomer sequence, a fluidic encapsulation system to encapsulate the polymer chains in microfluidic droplets and to apply addressing materials to the microfluidic droplets, a storage for storing the microfluidic droplets, a droplet sorting system having at least an actuator to sort the droplets, a sequencer to derive the polymer sequence from the polymer chains contained in the droplets, and a second converter to convert the polymer sequence to digital data. A composition of matter wherein polymer chains comprising alternating segments of flexible linkers and one or more rigid monomer blocks, and wherein the rigid blocks are defined in a meaningful manner to store in a sequence in the polymer chain that represents digital data”

The patent application was filed on December 21, 2018 (16/229,306).