Patents by Inventor Ian Roberts

Ian Roberts 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).

  • Patent number: 7320083
    Abstract: An apparatus and method for deterministically killing one of redundant servers on a common network is disclosed. The apparatus includes a chassis that encloses the servers and a storage controller, status indicators generated by the servers to the storage controller, and kill controls, generated by the storage controller to respective ones of the servers, each for killing a respective one of the servers. The status indicators and kill controls are wholly enclosed in the chassis. The kill controls deterministically disable the killed server on the network independently of the state of the server to be killed. That is, the server does not need to be able to respond to a command to be disabled on the network. In one embodiment, the kill controls comprise reset signals. After the storage controller deterministically kills one of the servers, the other server takes over the identity of the killed server on the network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 23, 2004
    Date of Patent: January 15, 2008
    Assignee: Dot Hill Systems Corporation
    Inventors: Ian Robert Davies, George Alexander Kalwitz, Victor Key Pecone
  • Publication number: 20080010530
    Abstract: A SAS expander includes SAS PHYs for transceiving signals with SAS devices on corresponding SAS links coupled to the SAS PHYs. The SAS expander includes status registers that provide fault detection parameters concerning communications on the SAS links. A microprocessor of the SAS expander identifies faulty communications on one of the SAS links, based on the fault detection parameters, and disables a corresponding one of the SAS PHYs coupled to the SAS link on which the microprocessor identified the faulty communications. The microprocessor may also report the PHY disabling to a SAS initiator. The microprocessor may also re-enable the PHY after corrective action is taken, such as in response to user input, an indication from a SAS device, or automatically detecting the corrective action. The expander may also automatically take the corrective action. The fault detection parameters may include error counters and corresponding thresholds, interrupt indicators, and state values.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 23, 2006
    Publication date: January 10, 2008
    Applicant: DOT HILL SYSTEMS CORPORATION
    Inventors: Ian Robert Davies, George Alexander Kalwitz, James Boyd Lenehan
  • Publication number: 20080005470
    Abstract: An active-active RAID system includes first and second active-active RAID controllers which efficiently share access to SATA drives. SAS expanders connect the RAID controllers to the drives. The controllers establish an affiliation within the SAS expanders with respectively-owned first and second subsets of the SATA drives. The controllers directly transmit to the SAS expanders commands destined for affiliated drives, but forward to the other RAID controller, via an inter-controller communications link, commands destined for unaffiliated drives for transmission by the other RAID controller. The controllers handle drive ownership changes by clearing previously-established affiliations, updating ownership data stored on the drives, including forwarding the update commands as necessary, and re-establishing affiliations based on the new ownership.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 7, 2006
    Publication date: January 3, 2008
    Applicant: DOT HILL SYSTEMS CORPORATION
    Inventor: Ian Robert Davies
  • Patent number: 7315911
    Abstract: A fault-tolerant RAID system is disclosed. The system includes redundant RAID controllers coupled by a PCI-Express link. When a PCI-Express controller of one of the RAID controllers receives a PCI-Express memory write request transaction layer packet (TLP), it interprets a predetermined bit in the header as an interrupt request flag, rather than as its standard function specified by the PCI-Express specification. If the flag is set, the PCI-Express controller interrupts the processor after storing the message in the payload at the specified memory location. In one embodiment, an unused upper address bit in the header is used as the interrupt request flag. Additionally, unused predetermined bits in the TLP header are used as a message tag to indicate one of a plurality of message buffers on the receiving RAID controller into which the message has been written. The PCI-Express controller sets a corresponding bit in a register to indicate which message buffer was written.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 11, 2005
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2008
    Assignee: Dot Hill Systems Corporation
    Inventors: Ian Robert Davies, Gene Maine, Rex Weldon Vedder
  • Publication number: 20070254990
    Abstract: A pipe coating composition comprises a linear polyethylene having a specific melt index and a narrow molecular weight distribution and an additive package comprising a hindered phenolic, a phosphite and a hindered amine light stabilizer. The composition preferably contains carbon black. The composition permits high rates of application and provides good oxidative induction times.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 11, 2007
    Publication date: November 1, 2007
    Inventors: Ronald W. Lewoniuk, Ian Robert Gibbons
  • Publication number: 20070236813
    Abstract: A magnifying apparatus removably attached to a menu, check wallet, billfold, wine list, and the like. The magnifying apparatus includes illumination means to illuminate an area viewed using the magnifying apparatus. The magnifying element may be a fresnel lens. The fresnel lens preferably has a power of 2-4 times. However, a magnification of up to 9 times or more can be used. The magnifying element may also be a standard lens preferably having a high index of refraction. It is preferable to have a high index of refraction to minimize the thickness of the lens. The standard lens or the fresnel lens is plastic, glass, polycarbon, or the like. Electronic magnification and display means may also be used.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 5, 2007
    Publication date: October 11, 2007
    Inventors: Robert Gary Josephberg, Ian Robert Blum
  • Patent number: 7278054
    Abstract: An apparatus is disclosed for deterministically performing active-active failover of redundant servers in response to a failure of a link on which each server provides a heartbeat to the other server. Each of the servers is configured to take over the identity of the other server on a common network in response to detecting a failure of the other server's link heartbeat. Each server provides a status indicator to a storage controller indicating whether the other server's link heartbeat stopped. The storage controller determines the link has failed if both of the status indicators indicate the other server's heartbeat stopped, and responsively kills one of the servers. The storage controller also receives a heartbeat directly from each server. If only one direct heartbeat stops when the status indicators indicate the link heartbeats stopped, then the storage controller detects one server has failed and inactivates the failed server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 23, 2004
    Date of Patent: October 2, 2007
    Assignee: Dot Hill Systems Corporation
    Inventors: Ian Robert Davies, George Alexander Kalwitz, Victor Key Pecone
  • Publication number: 20070226762
    Abstract: A digital communication system is disclosed, that allows a display of override content to interrupt a display of ongoing content on one or more display units. Ongoing content, such as advertisements, news, entertainment, or other relevant information, is provided on the display units until an urgent or security-related alert is required, and display of override content becomes necessary. Override content can include information relevant to the security of a passenger or passer-by viewing the display. Override content can relate to security threats such as accidents, major delays, fire, missing children, terrorist activity, or other content deemed adequately pertinent to warrant interrupting the display of ongoing content.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 3, 2006
    Publication date: September 27, 2007
    Applicant: ONESTOP MEDIA GROUP
    Inventors: Michael GIRGIS, Ian Robert GADSBY, Jake NEIMAN, Dmitri MELAMED, Daniel Joseph FRASER, Jeffrey David FINDLAY, Stephane Yvan GAGNON, Andrew James KILPATRICK
  • Patent number: 7244997
    Abstract: An electronic system includes a three terminal device having a light emitting portion and a magnetically sensitive portion. The magnetically sensitive portion is for modulating light emission from the light emitting portion. The device is a spin valve transistor having a light-emitting quantum well in its collector. The device can convert a magnetic digital signal to both an electrical digital signal and an optical digital signal, wherein either or both of these signals can be provided as a device output. The magnetically sensitive portion of the device is formed of a pair of magnetically permeable layers. When the layers are aligned electron current can pass through with sufficient energy to reach a quantum well where they recombine, generating light. The device may be used to read a magnetic storage medium, such as a disk drive. Or it can be used to provide a display or a memory array composed of single device magnetic write, optical read memory cells.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 8, 2003
    Date of Patent: July 17, 2007
    Assignee: President and Fellows of Harvard College
    Inventors: Ian Robert Appelbaum, Douwe Johannes Monsma, Kasey Joe Russell
  • Patent number: 7226918
    Abstract: The invention relates to the use of compounds of formula (I) and isomers, salts, solvates, chemically protected forms, and prodrugs thereof, in the preparation of a medicament for inhibiting the activity of DNA-PK, wherein R1 and R2 are independently hydrogen, an optionally substituted C1-7 alkyl group, C3-20 heterocyclyl group, or C5-20 aryl group, or may together form, along with the nitrogen atom to which they are attached, an optionally substituted heterocyclic ring having from 4 to 8 ring atoms; X and Y are selected from CR4 and O, O and CR?4 and NR?4 and N, where the unsaturation is in the appropriate place in the ring, and where one of R3 and R4 or R?4 is an optionally substituted C3-20 heteroaryl or C5-20 aryl group, and the other of R3 and R4 or R?4 is H, or R3 and R4 or R?4 together are -A-B—, which collectively represent a fused optionally substituted aromatic ring. The compounds also selectively inhibit the activity of DNA-PK compared to PI 3-kinase and/or ATM.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2002
    Date of Patent: June 5, 2007
    Assignee: Cancer Research Technology Limited
    Inventors: Niall Morrison Barr Martin, Graeme Cameron Murray Smith, Roger John Griffin, Bernard Thomas Golding, Ian Robert Hardcastle, David Richard Newell, Hilary Alan Calvert, Nicola Jane Curtin, Laurent Jean Martin Rigoreau, Xiao-ling Fan Cockcroft, Vincent Junior Ming-lai Loh, Paul Workman, Florence Irene Raynaud, Bernard Paul Nutley
  • Patent number: 7222715
    Abstract: A conveying assembly for fruit handling, comprising a carriage (20) adapted to be attached to a conveying chain arranged to displace the carriage in a conveying direction, a cup (30) adapted to support a single piece of fruit, the cup being secured to the carriage via a parallelogram linkage (41, 42, 22, 35) extending transversely to the conveying direction, the cup being pivotally secured to the linkage to be moveable from a conveying position to a discharge position, the linkage having release means (60) to cause the cup to pivot relative to the linkage transversely of the conveying direction to the discharge position to effect discharge of the fruit, the linkage allowing the cup to be vertically displaceable to effect weighting of the fruit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 30, 2003
    Date of Patent: May 29, 2007
    Assignee: Color Vision Systems Pty Ltd
    Inventors: Ian Robert Madden, Charles Edward Esson, Peter Gary Brown, Lester Welton
  • Patent number: 7170363
    Abstract: Microstructure materials which can be tuned to a particular range of r.f. frequencies to display particular magnetic permeabilities have been proposed. A typical material is made of an array of capacitive elements e.g. spirals or rolls of conducting material on a non-conducting substrate. These materials can be used as a guide which is effective for the particular band of frequencies to which it is tuned. In one example, the rolls (2a to 2c) guide magnetic flux along ducts (1, 2, 3) while rolls (4a, 5a) guide magnetic flux along ducts (4, 5). Flux can thus be guided upwardly along duct (2), along ducts (4 and 5), and down ducts (1, 3), or vice versa.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 6, 2001
    Date of Patent: January 30, 2007
    Assignee: Marconi UK Intellectual Property Ltd.
    Inventors: Michael Charles Keogh Wiltshire, Ian Robert Young
  • Patent number: 7166597
    Abstract: Compounds of Formula (I): salts or solvates or physiologically functional derivatives thereof, wherein Z is CH or N, and R1, R2, and R4 are various substituent groups, are protein kinase inhibitors
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 22, 2001
    Date of Patent: January 23, 2007
    Assignee: Glaxo Group Limited
    Inventors: Michael John Alberti, Ian Robert Baldwin, Mui Cheung, Stuart Cockerill, Stephen Flack, Philip Anthony Harris, David Kendall Jung, Gregory Peckham, Michael Robert Peel, Jennifer Gabriel Badiang, Kirk Stevens, James Marvin Veal
  • Patent number: 7146448
    Abstract: A storage controller configured to adopt orphaned I/O ports is disclosed. The controller includes multiple field-replaceable units (FRUs) that plug into a backplane having local buses. At least two of the FRUs have microprocessors and memory for processing I/O requests received from host computers for accessing storage devices controlled by the controller. Other of the FRUs include I/O ports for receiving the requests from the hosts and bus bridges for bridging the I/O ports to the backplane local buses in such a manner that if one of the processing FRUs fails, the surviving processing FRU detects the failure and responsively adopts the I/O ports previously serviced by the failed FRU to service the subsequently received I/O requests on the adopted I/O ports. The I/O port FRUs also include I/O ports for transferring data with the storage devices that are also adopted by the surviving processing FRU.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2004
    Date of Patent: December 5, 2006
    Assignee: Dot Hill Systems Corporation
    Inventors: Ian Robert Davies, Gene Maine, Victor Key Pecone
  • Patent number: D528373
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 28, 2005
    Date of Patent: September 19, 2006
    Inventors: Carrie Olsen Garrard, Ian Robert Garrard
  • Patent number: D538602
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 19, 2006
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2007
    Inventors: Carrie Olsen Garrard, Ian Robert Garrard
  • Patent number: D538603
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 19, 2006
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2007
    Inventors: Carrie Olsen Garrard, Ian Robert Garrard
  • Patent number: D539097
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 19, 2006
    Date of Patent: March 27, 2007
    Inventors: Carrie Olsen Garrard, Ian Robert Garrard
  • Patent number: D541597
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 19, 2006
    Date of Patent: May 1, 2007
    Inventors: Carrie Olsen Garrard, Ian Robert Garrard
  • Patent number: D558690
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 12, 2006
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2008
    Assignee: Ariens Company
    Inventors: Arnold W. Anderson, Jr., Paul William Garvey, Brian Joseph Lopez, Ian Robert Marquardt, Timothy Jon Peter