...that several people are credited with the invention of the flush toilet? Most people have heard of Thomas Crapper (1837-1910), the sanitary engineer who invented the valve-and-siphon arrangement that made the modern toilet possible. Another claimant to "the throne" was British inventor Alexander Cumming who patented a toilet in 1775. Then there's a nameless Minoan (a native of ancient Crete) who lived 4,000 years ago who supposedly was ahead of his time and created the first flush toilet!
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8095706 | Systems and methods for the analysis of mechanical properties of materials The various embodiments of the present invention relate generally to the analysis of the mechanical properties of materials. More particularly, the various embodiments of the present invention relates to systems and methods of deriving the static and dynamic mechani... | 01/10/2012 |
| 7958282 | Method, apparatus and system for serial attached SCSI (SAS) zoning management of a domain using initiator isolation Embodiments of the invention include a method and apparatus for managing SAS zoning using initiator isolation. The method includes assigning initiator devices in the SAS domain to a first initiator zone group, assigning target devices in the SAS domain to a second t... | 06/07/2011 |
| 7409480 | Electronic equipment, method of receiving data, method of transmitting data, method of setting channel and method of grouping electronic equipment into channels It becomes possible for a user to set a transmission or reception channel arbitrarily and easily. Each of equipment connected to an IEEE 1394 bus may include a register provided within a RAM 113 to thereby set a transmission or reception default channel. If c... | 08/05/2008 |
| 7366812 | Determination of access rights to information technology resources A method, system, and firewall for controlling access to resources within an information technology (IT) system. Commands received from a requesting entity request access to a resource associated with each command. An assigned authority level of the requesting entit... | 04/29/2008 |
| 7340542 | Data processing system with bus access retraction A bus master may selectively retract a currently pending access based on one or more characteristics of the currently pending access. In this manner, bus master may better control its access requests. The one or more characteristics may include, for example, type of... | 03/04/2008 |
| 7320041 | Controlling flow of data between data processing systems via a memory Apparatus, methods and systems for controlling data flow between data processing systems. In an example embodiment, the apparatus includes descriptor logic for generating a plurality of descriptors including a frame descriptor defining a data packet to be communicat... | 01/15/2008 |
| 7286067 | Appliance with communication protocol emulation An appliance includes a physical interface for communication according to a broad protocol and two functional components. The first functional component communicates via the physical interface. The second functional component includes a functional module adapted to ... | 10/23/2007 |
| 7277984 | Methods, apparatus and computer programs for scheduling storage requests Provided are methods, apparatus and computer programs for scheduling storage input and/or output (I/O) requests. A method for scheduling storage access requests determines a request processing sequence calculated to maximize SLA-based revenues achievable from proces... | 10/02/2007 |
| 7277968 | Managing sets of input/output communications subadapters of an input/output subsystem Input/output (I/O) communications subadapters, such as subchannels, of an I/O subsystem are dedicated to components, such as I/O devices, of the I/O subsystem. The subadapters provide information about the associated components, in response to the execution of I/O i... | 10/02/2007 |
| 7254656 | Method and service and computer program code for broadcast of interface group bring-up in a multiprocessor computer system having multiple nodes A method and hardware design is disclosed for allowing the bring-up of a large scale system of interfaces that need to undergo a sequence of calibration steps. The method involves the use of a flexible broadcast scheme whereby groups of interfaces within a chip are ... | 08/07/2007 |
| 7213083 | Apparatus for accessing a computer-readable medium device A computer-readable medium device includes apparatus and a computer-readable medium. To a computing device, according to a predetermined command set behavior of the computer-readable medium device, the apparatus outputs a description of first and second features of ... | 05/01/2007 |
| 7209981 | System and method for switching data storage devices and multiple processors A system is provided for switching the I/O channel for disk drives between multiple computers. The system incorporates the switch into removable drive modules, or a docking base for a removable drive module. The incorporation of switching into the system, such that ... | 04/24/2007 |
| 7181607 | Storage control apparatus In response to requests for I/O processing sent from a computer, I/O which should be processed at a priority is enabled to be processed without being affected by other processing, by classifying I/O into those to be processed at a priority and those not to be proces... | 02/20/2007 |
| 7159065 | Method for issuing vendor specific requests for accessing ASIC configuration and descriptor memory while still using a mass storage class driver A bridge-chip may interface a Universal Serial Bus to a mass storage device. Communications of the universal serial bus may be examined to determine a command block wrapper (CBW) of a bulk transport protocol and if a configuration command block (CFGCB) of the CBW ma... | 01/02/2007 |
| 7149821 | Predictably defining input/output configurations for environments employing fabrics In an environment employing a fabric, such as a cascading switch network, a predictable input/output (I/O) configuration is provided. The I/O configuration explicitly specifies the one or more peripheral units accessible by a program, such as an operating system. Ot... | 12/12/2006 |
| 7127678 | System and method to specify device specific user interface information in the firmware of a USB device The described system and procedure provide for storing device-specific UI information into firmware on a USB device. Responsive to receiving a host specific device request, the USB device communicates the device specific information to a requester such as an operati... | 10/24/2006 |
| 7120715 | Priority arbitration based on current task and MMU A digital system and method of operation is provided in which several processors (740(0)–740(n)) are connected to a shared resource (750). Each processor has an access priority register (1410) that is loaded with an access priori... | 10/10/2006 |
| 7117288 | USB dynamic service switch for dual processor architecture USB bus enumeration and configuration switching in a dual-processor architected device can result in loss of the inter-processor communication link. In order to solve this problem, an apparatus, architecture and method for simplifying the Universal Serial Bus (USB) ... | 10/03/2006 |
| 7093031 | Specifying extended configuration descriptor information in a USB device Systems and methods for specifying extended configuration descriptor information in a Universal Serial Bus (USB) device are described. In one aspect, an extended configuration descriptor is provided in firmware of a USB device. The extended configuration descriptor ... | 08/15/2006 |
| 7069437 | Multi-level security network system A network prevents unauthorized users from gaining access to confidential information. The network has various workstations and servers connected by a common medium and through a router to the Internet. The network has two major components, a Network Security Center... | 06/27/2006 |
| 7003379 | Limit cycle autotuning method and heat/cool control apparatus In a limit cycle autotuning method, the first limit cycle of alternately outputting a heat-side manipulated variable set point and a cool-side manipulated variable set point is generated. The first control response corresponding to the first limit cycle is detected.... | 02/21/2006 |
| 6981080 | Look-up table based USB identification An embodiment of USB device comprises a lookup table in a fixed electronically readable medium comprising a plurality of product identification information entries. The USB device also has an electronically readable index that selects one of the plurality of product... | 12/27/2005 |
| 6961790 | Self-extracting re-configurable interface used in modular electronic architecture A re-configurable interface used in modular electronic architectures includes a host (203) and one or more modules (201) for interfacing with the host (203) to provide additional functionality. A configuration controller (209) located in ... | 11/01/2005 |
| 6950869 | Information processing apparatus, method and memory medium therefor The invention is to provide an information processing apparatus capable of easily setting operation parameters in acquiring various status from the plural peripheral apparatus, and a method therefor. In an image for setting the time-out value for a protocol for acqu... | 09/27/2005 |
| 6918000 | USB hub with soft select ports The present invention is directed to a USB hub with soft select ports. A universal serial bus (USB) hub suitable for indicating a user-selectable number of ports may include a universal serial bus (USB) hub suitable for facilitating universal serial bus (USB) commun... | 07/12/2005 |
| 6832273 | System and method to specify extended configuration descriptor information in USB devices The following system and procedure for specifying an extended configuration descriptor includes a USB device that responds to device requests from a host. In response to receiving a host-specific device request that specifies a predetermined index, the USB device re... | 12/14/2004 |
| 6807588 | Method and apparatus for maintaining order in a queue by combining entry weights and queue weights A sectioned ordered queue in an information handling system comprises a plurality of queue sections arranged in order from a first queue section to a last queue section. Each queue section contains one or more queue entries that correspond to available ranges of rea... | 10/19/2004 |
| 6771556 | Single port random access memory equipped with a relief module to operate as a dual port shared memory The present relief module equipped random access memory avoids the need for enforced idle cycles for the processors, thereby enabling the State Machine to operate at its maximum speed. This relief module equipped random access memory also enables the Central Process... | 08/03/2004 |
| 6754734 | Systems, methods, and computer program products to improve performance of ported applications, such as a database Systems, methods, and computer products that improve the performance of computer-implemented I/O operations for complex applications, such as a database, that are ported to target computer systems that are not tailored to support the high-performance services that m... | 06/22/2004 |
| 6738832 | Methods and apparatus in a logging system for the adaptive logger replacement in order to receive pre-boot information A method, system, and computer program product for logging events in a data processing system is provided. In one embodiment, responsive to a determination that a situation exists preventing a primary logger from executing a logging task, a swappable adaptive logger... | 05/18/2004 |
| 6725287 | Method and system for capturing streaming data by an actionable information engine The present invention captures streaming data and avoids continual retrieval. The invention only looks at data once, has a time dependency built into it, and data that is not consumed or relevant is discarded. The invention includes an engine processor that processe... | 04/20/2004 |
| 6725332 | Hierarchical priority filter with integrated serialization for determining the entry with the highest priority in a buffer memory A storage device and a method for determining the entry with the highest priority in a buffer memory. The method is characterized by the steps of operating a plurality of priority subfilter circuits each of them covering a disjunct subgroup of the total of entries a... | 04/20/2004 |
| 6505260 | Computer system with adaptive memory arbitration scheme A computer system includes an adaptive memory arbiter for prioritizing memory access requests, including a self-adjusting, programmable request-priority ranking system. The memory arbiter adapts during every arbitration cycle, reducing the priority of any... | 01/07/2003 |
| 6484219 | Host-specified USB device requests A USB device is configured to support a non-USB-defined device request that is specific to an application program or operating system. The device request is supported by using a device-specific or vendor-specific request code, which is allowed to vary fro... | 11/19/2002 |
| 6463497 | Communication method for integrated circuit chips on a multi-chip module A signal is transmitted from a sending chip to a first receiving chip in a communications ring via a first i/o set of the sending chip. A signal from the sending chip to a second receiving chip in the communications ring is transmitted via a second i/o se... | 10/08/2002 |
| 6125396 | Method and apparatus for implementing bandwidth allocation with a reserve feature A method for accessing a shared resource is provided. An assigned usage rate is received from a resource coordinator and a desired usage rate is determined. When it is determined that the desired usage rate is higher than the assigned usage rate, a shared... | 09/26/2000 |
| 6119178 | Communication interface between remote transmission of both compressed video and other data and data exchange with local peripherals A multimedia communication arrangement communicating video and at least one other data type using a communication channel includes a first interface arrangement for communicating video and the at least one other data type using the communication channel. ... | 09/12/2000 |
| 6112263 | Method for multiple independent processes controlling access to I/O devices in a computer system An I/O device driver is shared between a number of processes within a computer system while security and protection for system memory is maintained. Controlled access to the I/O device is provided by managing an authorized list in an I/O processor which i... | 08/29/2000 |
| 6092137 | Fair data bus arbitration system which assigns adjustable priority values to competing sources A scheme for arbitrating access to a data bus shared among a plurality of competing sources is provided. Each competing source is assigned an adjustable priority weighting value (PWV) which is initially set to an initial value based on the bandwidth requi... | 07/18/2000 |
| 5941978 | Method for comparing attribute values of controllable object expressions in a network element A method for selecting a target group for an operation applied to a network element (NE) of a communication network includes (a) receiving from a network management element information on the operation and on the first target group (S), which is a group o... | 08/24/1999 |