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3M employee and church chorister Art Fry needed something to temporarily mark pages in his hymnal. He was in luck because his colleague, Spencer Silver, accidentally developed a glue that was too weak for other purposes. After initially discouraging consumer response, Post-it Notes became a hit in 1979.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8182868 | Encapsulation of particulate contamination A method for the encapsulation of contaminant particles on the surface of a component. The method includes encapsulating the contaminant particles with an organic coating such that the contaminant particles are immobilized. The coating enables the immobilization of ... | 05/22/2012 |
| 8059364 | Hermetically sealed connector interface The present invention relates to preformed seals used in the manufacture of low density gas filled disk drives. The seals may be preformed to facilitate positioning in the disk drive and eliminate the need for manually applied or semi-automatically applied epoxies, ... | 11/15/2011 |
| 7914858 | Process to seal housing components to contain low density gas A method and apparatus for sealing disk drive housing castings and the resulting housings. A housing component of a data storage device is placed in an environment of decreased pressure where a first tank that is an autoclave is pressurized at a selected pressure an... | 03/29/2011 |
| 7889461 | Internal support interface between a shaft and housing member with vibration and acoustic isolation An internal support interface which provides vibration and acoustic isolation. A stationary shaft has a medial portion about which a rotatable member rotates. An end portion of the shaft has an annular base surface surrounding a stub shaft projection. A substantiall... | 02/15/2011 |
| 7886802 | Thermode sealing with magnetic field compensation Apparatus and method for applying thermal energy to a sealing member. Electrical current is applied to a heating assembly to generate thermal energy, and a heat conductor transfers the generated thermal energy to a seal member adjacent a housing. The heating assembl... | 02/15/2011 |
| 7813083 | Disk drive load arm structure having a strain sensor and method of its fabrication A load arm for a disk drive may include a base section that has an opening for receiving a spindle of a voice coil motor. The base section may have hinge arms that extend from the base section and terminate in tab portions. An arm section may be affixed to the tabs ... | 10/12/2010 |
| 7787209 | Method and apparatus for compensating for repeatable runout using wide embedded runout correction fields A method and apparatus for compensating for repeatable runout using wide embedded runout correction fields is provided. In one embodiment, a disk surface is provided with a write head associated therewith. The disk surface has a data track having a width. An embedde... | 08/31/2010 |
| 7757378 | Resin impregnation process with enhanced fluidic control The present invention relates to a method of sealing disk drive housing castings and the resulting housings. More specifically, as sealant is transferred between a sealant storage tank and an autoclave, the sealant is filtered to remove debris or other impurities fr... | 07/20/2010 |
| 7684146 | Hermetic seal for a spindle motor of a disk drive A hermetic seal is provided for sealing discrete openings in a disk drive, such as an opening made in a base plate of the drive for a spindle motor shaft and openings made in the base plate for spindle motor lead wires. The hermetic seal for the spindle motor shaft ... | 03/23/2010 |
| 7639449 | Passive fly height adjustment to compensate for ambient pressure changes in a disk drive A disk drive includes a drive circuitry, a suspension, a slider assembly that includes a read/write head, and a pressure compensator. The pressure compensator is electrically decoupled from the drive circuitry. A portion of the pressure compensator has a volume that... | 12/29/2009 |
| 7624495 | Method of reducing torque out retention values in de-swaging of actuator of disk drive A lubricant is applied to swage contact surfaces in a disk drive of the type including a suspension arm connected to an actuator arm by a swaging process. A preferred thin film lubricant may be applied to the contact surfaces by immersion and draining, immersion and... | 12/01/2009 |
| 7623313 | Method and apparatus for performing a self-servo write operation in a disk drive The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for performing a self-servo write operation in a disk drive. In one embodiment, the disk drive includes a disk surface having a read head and a write head associated therewith. Spiral servo information is w... | 11/24/2009 |
| 7619846 | Self-servo writing using staged patterning An apparatus and method for servo writing are disclosed. The method includes writing of first servo data to a medium, detecting a velocity integrated position of the first servo data, and writing second servo data in relation to the detected position of the first se... | 11/17/2009 |
| 7612968 | Disk drive microactuator frame with epoxy overflow reservoir A disk drive slider positioner (180) includes a frame (184) having a pair of arms (216a, 216b) that cantilever from a base (188). A slider (140) is positioned within frame (184). A pair of slots (224 | 11/03/2009 |
| 7597833 | Fixtureless manufacture of bonded actuator/coil assemblies An actuator/coil assembly (136) is disclosed where two different bonding operations are used. First, a bobbin (164) is overmolded to a coil (172), and a first overmolded part (176) is overmolded to both the coil (172) and a fan tai... | 10/06/2009 |
| 7596721 | Methods and structure for patching embedded firmware Methods and structures for providing patches or updates to embedded ROM firmware simply and inexpensively while avoiding imposition of execution or memory fetch overhead. A patch memory includes locations storing addresses and optional alternate data values. Read/fe... | 09/29/2009 |
| 7595949 | Method for active cancellation of write-to-read crosstalk A method for preventing electrical overstress from interfering with a magnetic read-write device by identifying one or more characteristic functions of the device that characterize electrical overstress, generating a wave form representative of the electrical overst... | 09/29/2009 |
| 7589925 | Method of accessing variable density data tracks in a disk drive A disk drive has multiple disk surfaces and corresponding heads, each disk surface includes multiple regions, and each head is for recording on and playback of information from a corresponding disk surface. The data track density in a first region on a first disk su... | 09/15/2009 |
| 7570454 | Fill valve with a press-fit member for a sealed housing A method and apparatus for sealing a hard disk drive with a low-density gas is provided. A valve body is positioned over an opening in the hard disk drive housing. The valve body is in communication with a source of low-density gas, a vacuum source and the interior ... | 08/04/2009 |
| 7561359 | Spiral servo patterns with absolute reference point The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for providing an absolute reference point on a disk surface of a disk drive. A write head associated with the disk surface is used to write spirals of servo information thereon, for example, under control o... | 07/14/2009 |
| 7558015 | Actuation efficiency based contact detection In one example, a method is provided and includes comparing a measured change in spacing between a transducer element and a storage element in response to a fly height control signal with an expected change in spacing for the applied fly height control signal. The m... | 07/07/2009 |
| 7551387 | Servo writing with offset compensation for prewritten reference In accordance with various embodiments, a rotatable member is mounted to a spindle hub so that initial servo data previously provided to the rotatable member are eccentrically offset with respect to a rotational center of the spindle hub. Compensation vales are dete... | 06/23/2009 |
| 7549325 | Glide head with active device A glide head having a portion thereof that is selectively extendable toward the rotating disk by the application of an electrical signal thereto. The extendable portion may be located on a side wing extending from a slider main body. The side wing may include a piez... | 06/23/2009 |
| 7545593 | Magnetic storage systems and methods with tighter write fault window to improve reliability A magnetic storage system includes a disk, a head, an actuator, and a servo controller. The servo controller monitors a value, such as a position error signal (PES) sample value, a predicted PES sample value, and the like, that is based on servo information provided... | 06/09/2009 |
| 7542230 | Disk drive during self-servo writing A disk drive self-servo writes on a storage disk. Servo bursts are self-written along a track using a transducer, a position error signal (PES) indicating repeatable runout due (RRO) for the servo bursts is determined using a reference pattern, an embedded runout co... | 06/02/2009 |
| 7538971 | Microactuator control adjustment using temperature sensor measurements Embodiments of the present invention allow for controlling a microactuator based at least in part on an output of a temperature sensor. Also, embodiments of the present invention allow for adjusting a control of a microactuator so as to compensate for changes in a g... | 05/26/2009 |
| 7522365 | Magnetic storage systems and methods allowing for recovery of data blocks written off-track with non-constant offsets A magnetic storage system includes a disk, a head, an actuator, a read channel, and a main controller. The main controller causes the head to read a data block of a selected track of the disk at each of a plurality of fixed offsets from a center of the selected trac... | 04/21/2009 |
| 7518817 | Reduction of high-frequency electromagnetic emission quasi-peaks from disk drives A disk drive having reduced electromagnetic emission quasi-peaks is provided. The repetition rate of servo blocks or data is reduced, spread or otherwise altered. In one embodiment, the number of data zones is increased to achieve an emissions reduction goal. In one... | 04/14/2009 |
| 7518813 | Methods and structure for detecting anomalous events in a disk drive using VGA variance Methods and structures for detecting touchdown of the read/write head on its recording surface or for detecting other read signal amplitude modulations as proportional to variance of the value of the read channel variable gain amplifier (“VGA”). Variance in the ... | 04/14/2009 |
| 7511924 | Conductor assembly for reducing track misregistration in a disk drive A conductor assembly for carrying electrical signals is provided for a disk drive having an actuator arm. The actuator arm includes a first surface lying in a first plane, a second surface lying in a second plane and an outer edge. The conductor assembly includes a ... | 03/31/2009 |
| 7511914 | Fly height compensation using temperature and non-repeatable runouts A controller is provided having a circuit that uses non-repeatable run-out data and temperature data to provide a compensation for a fly height of a head. A disk drive may also be provided having a head for reading data from a disk, a thermistor, and a controller fo... | 03/31/2009 |
| 7509728 | Method for adjusting head-to-disk spacing in a disk drive A method for manufacturing a first disk drive includes incorporating a first storage disk having a first storage surface, and a first slider having a first read/write head and a slider mover into the first disk drive. Further, the first read/write head is movably po... | 03/31/2009 |
| 7507096 | Data storage device security system A locking data cable (24) is disclosed. The data cable (24) includes a data plug (26) and an associated lock (32). When the data plug (26) is engaged with a data port (16) of a data storage device (12), an actuator ( | 03/24/2009 |
| 7505229 | Disk drive flex cable with ESD contact pad A disk drive electrical interconnect includes one or more electrical contacts for providing a controlled discharge form a disk drive head in a manner that reduces the potential for damaging the head in preparation for testing or the like. In some embodiments the ele... | 03/17/2009 |
| 7502205 | Method of operating read and write transducers by controlling thermal actuation A control source and drivers for a thermal actuator fly height controlled heads in a disk drive system includes provisions for driving a heater element to dissipate various levels of power, and thus actuate the head by a desired amount, depending on whether the head... | 03/10/2009 |
| 7499234 | Method and apparatus for modifying spiral profile using reference tracks written onto a disk surface of a disk drive The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for modifying a spiral profile using reference tracks written onto a disk surface of a disk drive. In one embodiment, a disk drive includes a disk surface having both a read head and a write head associated... | 03/03/2009 |
| 7483269 | Test rack adapter for hard disk drive An adapter which allows two or more hard disk drives to conduct self-testing in a single test rack slot is provided. Testing can be individually controlled for the various HDDs in a slot. Peltier cell devices or other cooling or heating devices can be controlled to ... | 01/27/2009 |
| 7477473 | Servo positioning adjustment An apparatus and associated method for observing an analog position signal of a control object in relation to positional indicia, recalling a previously stored runout correction value associated with the positional indicia, and calculating a corrected position signa... | 01/13/2009 |
| 7474492 | Mechanical reference detection using a v-shaped pattern Various embodiments of the present invention are generally directed to detecting a fixed mechanical reference adjacent a storage medium using a v-shaped pattern written to the medium. ... | 01/06/2009 |
| 7474491 | Adaptive write unsafe thresholds for self servo writing An apparatus and associated method is provided for observing a positional misplacement of a control object at a first commanded position, defining a fault threshold as a function of the observed positional misplacement, and signaling a write unsafe command to the co... | 01/06/2009 |
