Patents Represented by Law Firm Townsend and Towsend and Crew
  • Patent number: 7783979
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus for configuring a bookmark are disclosed. A bookmark is configured such that the bookmark has one or more variables and/or one or more commands associated therewith. A value is dynamically substituted for each variable of the bookmark. The bookmark is then executed such that any command(s) of the bookmark are executed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2005
    Date of Patent: August 24, 2010
    Assignee: A9.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Jonathan Leblang, Matthew W. Amacker
  • Patent number: 7745389
    Abstract: The invention relates to Factor H gene polymorphisms and haplotypes associated with an elevated or a reduced risk of AMD. The invention provides methods and reagents for diagnosis and treatment of AMD.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2006
    Date of Patent: June 29, 2010
    Assignee: University of Iowa Research Foundation
    Inventor: Gregory S. Hageman
  • Patent number: 7706097
    Abstract: Embodiments of the invention improve utility of a magnetic disk drive in which a head is retracted if the magnetic disk drive is in a dropping state. In one embodiment, an HDC/MPU provided in a magnetic disk drive judges whether the magnetic disk drive is in a dropping state based on an output from an acceleration sensor which may detect an acceleration and performs a retraction operation of a head. After the HDC/MPU judges that a drop is occurring, the HDC/MPU detects whether the drop judgment is incorrect according to whether a shock sensor detects a shock occurrence and changes the drop judgment condition based on a detection history of detected incorrect judgments.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 19, 2008
    Date of Patent: April 27, 2010
    Assignee: Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.V.
    Inventors: Kenji Kuroki, Toru Aida, Kenichi Kuramoto, Yasuhiro Kotani
  • Patent number: 7694488
    Abstract: According to the invention, a method of making an eave for a roof on a building is disclosed. The method may include providing a structure with at least two sides and a roof frame. The method may further include coupling at least two of a plurality of eave blocks with a first trim piece. The method may also include a step of coupling at least two of the plurality of eave blocks with a side of the structure. The method may additionally include coupling a roof piece with a top of the roof frame and a top of at least two of the plurality of eave blocks.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2006
    Date of Patent: April 13, 2010
    Assignee: Tuff Shed, Inc.
    Inventor: Tom Saurey
  • Patent number: 7641109
    Abstract: The present invention provides systems and methods to initiate, facilitate, process and/or perform money transfers. One such method includes establishing a money transfer record (310) and receiving, from a vendor location, a money transfer activation request (320) associated with the money transfer record. The method includes receiving a fulfillment request (330) associated with the money transfer record, collecting a customer data set, and authorizing a money transfer (340) associated with the money transfer record. The money transfer is facilitated by the creation of a money transfer record, which may occur prior to the money transfer activation request. The customer then can initiate the money transfer while at the vendor location using, for example, money transfer cards available for purchase from the vendor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 18, 2005
    Date of Patent: January 5, 2010
    Assignee: The Western Union Company
    Inventors: Dean A. Seifert, Thomas B. Sayor, Mark Baumgart
  • Patent number: 7588766
    Abstract: The invention provides improved agents and methods for treatment of diseases associated with amyloid deposits of A? in the brain of a patient. Such methods entail administering agents that induce a beneficial immunogenic response against the amyloid deposit. The methods are useful for prophylactic and therapeutic treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Preferred agents including N-terminal fragments of A? and antibodies binding to the same.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 28, 2000
    Date of Patent: September 15, 2009
    Assignee: Elan Pharma International Limited
    Inventor: Dale B. Schenk
  • Patent number: 7562813
    Abstract: A payment instrument in the form of a cell phone is loaded with account information and activated as a payment instrument by reading account information from a nearby RFID device, and entering a user PIN or password. In one embodiment, the account information is read from an RFID tag provided to the user, and the password is entered on the phone keypad. In a second embodiment, the account information is read from an RFID device at an ATM or kiosk after the user inserts a card into a card reader at the ATM or kiosk and enters the password at the ATM or kiosk keypad.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 10, 2006
    Date of Patent: July 21, 2009
    Assignee: First Data Corporation
    Inventors: Wendy Humphrey, Sunil Dewan, Daniel J. Oswald
  • Patent number: 7543610
    Abstract: A thread clamp for a rapier head (1) is presented which contains a clamping part (4) for firmly clamping a weft thread (3) and an actuator (5) for moving the clamping part (4). The actuator (5) includes a ferromagnetic core (12), an armature (11) and at least one winding (13) which is arranged on the core or armature in order to produce a magnetic field in the latter and to move the armature and the clamping part, which is operatively connected to the latter, with the core (12) having two limbs (12.1, 12.2) between which the armature (11) is movably arranged, and with each limb being provided with a permanent magnet (14.1, 14.2) in order to hold the armature at one of the two rest positions in the current-free state of the winding.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 2007
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2009
    Assignee: Sultex AG
    Inventors: Erich Kläui, Marius Bachofen, Dietmar Markward
  • Patent number: 7502349
    Abstract: A device for wirelessly transmitting data under a wireless protocol is contemplated. A remote wireless network device initiates a session with a network. In this manner, information is sent to a gateway associated with the access point that couples the remote wireless network device to the network. When the remote wireless network device moves, data is tunneled between the succeeding gateway and the original gateway, but for those sessions opened at the original gateway. Any sessions associated with the remote wireless network device at the new gateway are processed and maintained by the new gateway without tunneling the data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 22, 2006
    Date of Patent: March 10, 2009
    Assignee: Proxim Wireless Corporation
    Inventors: Daniel Yun-chak Wong, Gajendra Shukla, Hilton Hong
  • Patent number: 7462459
    Abstract: LAT1 is consistently expressed at high levels in brain microvessel endothelial cells. Disclosed herein are assays for determining whether a test material/molecule is a substrate for, and/or is actively transported by, the LAT1 transporter, and therefore a candidate substrate for crossing the blood brain barrier. The assays are useful in screening for therapeutic, cytotoxic or imaging compounds used in the treatment or diagnosis of neurological diseases.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 30, 2004
    Date of Patent: December 9, 2008
    Assignee: XenoPort, Inc.
    Inventor: Noa Zerangue
  • Patent number: 7460340
    Abstract: Embodiments of the invention improve the impact-resisting performance of a disk drive. In a head actuator assembly according to an embodiment of the invention, the difference in resonance frequency between an arm bending mode and a coil bending mode is set at a predetermined value or less. Since there is a phase difference between these two modes, an oscillation gain in the arm bending mode can be greatly decreased by approximating the two resonance frequencies to each other. Consequently, it is possible to suppress collision of a head with a recording disk caused by an external shock and thereby improve the impact-resisting performance of a disk drive.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 19, 2005
    Date of Patent: December 2, 2008
    Assignee: Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.V.
    Inventors: Hirokazu Tanizawa, Hitoshi Tsujino, Hiroyasu Tsuchida
  • Patent number: 7456116
    Abstract: A method to form a silicon oxide layer, where the method includes the step of providing a continuous flow of a silicon-containing precursor to a chamber housing a substrate, where the silicon-containing precursor is selected from TMOS, TEOS, OMTS, OMCTS, and TOMCATS. The method may also include the steps of providing a flow of an oxidizing precursor to the chamber, and causing a reaction between the silicon-containing precursor and the oxidizing precursor to form a silicon oxide layer. The method may further include varying over time a ratio of the silicon-containing precursor:oxidizing precursor flowed into the chamber to alter a rate of deposition of the silicon oxide on the substrate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2004
    Date of Patent: November 25, 2008
    Assignee: Applied Materials, Inc.
    Inventors: Nitin K. Ingle, Shan Wong, Xinyun Xia, Vikash Banthia, Won B. Bang, Yen-Kun V. Wang, Zheng Yuan
  • Patent number: 7454652
    Abstract: In a storage system including an information processing apparatus and a storage apparatus that is communicably connected to the information processing apparatus via a communication network and that writes or reads data to or from a storage device in response to a data write/read request transmitted from the information processing apparatus, real resource operations are managed, with virtual resources set by assigning the real resources and the settings changed in conformity with the operating status of the real resources.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 27, 2005
    Date of Patent: November 18, 2008
    Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
    Inventors: Futoshi Haga, Yutaka Kudo, Shuji Fujino
  • Patent number: 7435591
    Abstract: The present invention relates to germ line and somatic cells comprising a mutant p27kip1 protein lacking a Cdk2 phosphorylation site. Also provided are transgenic animals and methods of making such transgenic animals which have increased size and/or growth rate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 27, 2003
    Date of Patent: October 14, 2008
    Assignee: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
    Inventors: Nisar P. Malek, James M. Roberts
  • Patent number: 7417821
    Abstract: According to embodiments of the present invention, tracks can be formed on a magnetic recording medium on a zonal area at intervals of either a first track pitch or a second track pitch, both of which differ from each other. For a reference track defined in each zonal area, regardless of whether tracks are formed with the first track pitch or the second track pitch, the first track pitch and the second track pitch are specified so that a head position at the time of writing or reading information to or from the reference track, is common to both of the first track pitch and the second track pitch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 20, 2007
    Date of Patent: August 26, 2008
    Assignee: Hitachi Global Storage Technnologies Netherlands B.V.
    Inventor: Hiroyuki Tsuchinaga
  • Patent number: 7415667
    Abstract: Techniques for generating a paper document that integrates notes written by a user and different types of captured or recorded information. A user can take written notes during an information communication event. While taking the notes, the user can identify, from information captured during the information communication event, information that is of interest to the user and that the user would like to integrate with or incorporate into the user's notes. A paper document is generated by printing a visual representation of the notes written by the user and the visual representations of portions of information that a user would like to integrate with the user's notes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2003
    Date of Patent: August 19, 2008
    Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd.
    Inventor: Bradley J. Rhodes
  • Patent number: 7404206
    Abstract: An OSI layer 2 network device on the edge of a network such as a SAN is configured to replace the original source address of traffic entering the network with a known identifier or address, which is used to signify that entry point as the traffic source to the other nodes of the network. Nodes of the network recognize the new source address as a valid source address. The network device also maintains state (e.g., association of original source address with new source address/identifier) so as to translate addresses to enable reply traffic to be sent back to the original sender.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 16, 2002
    Date of Patent: July 22, 2008
    Assignee: YottaYotta, Inc.
    Inventors: Sima Noghanian, Patrick Mullen, Himanshu Dwivedi, Geoff Hayward, Bob Beck
  • Patent number: 7391013
    Abstract: The present invention provides scanning beam devices that have one or more detectors positioned within a housing of the device. The detector(s) may be disposed anywhere within the housing to receive light reflected from the target area. In one embodiment, an optical assembly of the device transmits a first portion of the reflected light to a scanning element, and a second portion of the reflected light to the detectors. In another embodiment, the optical assembly is configured to transmit substantially all of the reflected light to the scanning element. In such embodiments, the scanning element will be adapted to allow the light to exit the scanning element and impinge on the detector(s) within the housing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 2, 2007
    Date of Patent: June 24, 2008
    Assignee: University of Washington
    Inventors: Richard S. Johnston, Charles D. Melville
  • Patent number: 7375016
    Abstract: Disclosed herein is a method for fabricating a memory device. According to the present invention, during an etching process for forming a recess gate region, a device isolation film is etched using a mask partially exposing a channel region and its neighboring device isolation film, and then a semiconductor substrate is etched, thus preventing a silicon horn in the recess gate region from being formed. Accordingly, a margin for the etching process is increased.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 30, 2005
    Date of Patent: May 20, 2008
    Assignee: Hynix Semiconductor Inc.
    Inventor: Sang Don Lee
  • Patent number: 7352840
    Abstract: The present invention provides internal gain charge coupled devices (CCD) and CT scanners that incorporate an internal gain CCD. A combined positron emission tomography and CT scanner is also provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 21, 2005
    Date of Patent: April 1, 2008
    Assignee: Radiation Monitoring Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Vivek V. Nagarkar, Sameer V. Tipnis