Dell, HP and, Philips Assigned Patent

Dell Products LP, Round Rock, TX, Hewlett-Packard Co., Palo Alto, CA, and Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, have been assigned a patent (8,144,555) developed by six co-inventors for a system and method for embedding optical drive compatibility information in optical media.

The co-inventors are Dirk Erickson, Austin, TX, Robert A. Brondijk, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Jacobus Petrus Josephus Heemskerk, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Jakob G. Nijboer, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Christiaan Steenbergen, Austin, TX, and Charles R. Weirauch, Loveland, CO.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Compatibility information embedded in an optical medium modifies actions allowed by predetermined non-compatible optical disc drives on the optical medium, such as optical disc drives that may suffer damage if certain actions are performed on the optical medium. For instance, a compatibility engine of the optical disc drive applies compatibility information read from an optical medium to determine restrictions to impose on the use of the optical medium, such as restricting the optical disc drive from writing to the optical medium, reading from the optical medium or performing any operations until an update to the optical disc drive firmware is performed either automatically or by display of a compatibility user interface at an information handling system associated with the optical disc drive. In one embodiment, the compatibility information identifies incompatible optical disc drives and firmware versions by unique identifiers."

The patent application was filed on Jan. 7, 2011 (12/986,844).