Patents by Inventor Gale Johnson

Gale Johnson has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20070268629
    Abstract: Apparatuses and a method are provided to prevent buckling damage to a disk drive flexure when the read/write heads are subjected to high stiction loads and when backward rotation of the disks occur. Excessive flexure displacements due to the buckling loads are prevented by transferring some of the force of the buckling load to the stronger, stiffer load beam. Buckling limiter features are provided on either the load beam or flexure, or on both the load beam and flexure wherein the force of the buckling load causes contact of a component on the flexure against a component on the load beam. The contact between the components causes some of the buckling load to be transferred to the load beam. Each of the preferred embodiments provide different structural components forming the buckling limiting features.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 15, 2006
    Publication date: November 22, 2007
    Applicant: SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY LLC
    Inventors: Jerry Coffey, John Harris, Getachew Asefaw, Gale Johnson
  • Patent number: 4802354
    Abstract: An improved, highly pick-resistant tumbler lock construction incorporates at least one of the rear face of the driver sleeve or the front face of the tumbler sleeve with a plurality of notches. Each notch surrounds a driver or tumbler axial bore so as to provide at the trough of the notch a false shear plane while the crest of the notch portion of the tumbler and driver sleeve forms a plane to fixedly support two relatively thin discs which form the true shear plane. The discs include annularly spaced bores corresponding to the tumbler and driver sleeve bores. Thus when attempting to pick the lock, and the driver and tumbler pins are at the notched false shear plane, the driver sleeve will not be able to turn because the pins will be caught in the lower part of the notch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 7, 1987
    Date of Patent: February 7, 1989
    Assignee: Fort Lock Corporation
    Inventor: Gale Johnson
  • Patent number: 4716749
    Abstract: An improved, highly pick-resistant tumbler lock construction incorporates annular undercut portions on both the rotating spindle and the tumbler sleeve of the lock. The undercut portions define discontinuities along the axial bores of the spindle and the tumbler sleeve so as to provide the false feel of a shear plane when the driver pins are used to manipulate the tumbler pins in order to pick or decode the lock. Several of the driver pins and the tumbler pins are also provided with annular grooves which, in combination with the undercuts on the spindle and tumbler sleeve, accentuate the false feel effect in such a way that the false feel of the shear plane is provided at differently inwardly extending positions of the pins, thereby making it extremely difficult to determine when a particular tumbler pin has been precisely positioned at the shear plane.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 16, 1987
    Date of Patent: January 5, 1988
    Assignee: Fort Lock Corporation
    Inventor: Gale Johnson