Apple Assigned Patent

Apple Corp., Cupertino, A, has been assigned a patent (8,156,271) developed by Russell Dean Reece, Foster City, CA, for "systems and methods for storage management in a data processing device."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Methods and systems for storage management in a data processing device. The data processing device may be connected to a host computer and it can be in one of two states: disk mode (e.g., docked) or device mode (e.g., undocked). According to an embodiment, a mass storage device associated with a data processing device is divided into two or more segments or virtual volumes, and at least one volume is managed by the device even in a disk mode. In some cases, this makes the device usable while in the docked state and hence it improves the user experience. In some embodiments, an extra software component other than the file system is employed on the device to manage the storage device. Certain volumes may be dynamically increased or decreased while the data processing device is in a disk mode."

The patent application was filed on April 7, 2011 (13/082,342).