Microsoft Assigned Patent

Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (8,214,621) developed by Nathan Steven Obr, Bellevue, WA, and Robert Dale Rinne, Seattle, WA for a "storage optimization across media with differing capabilities."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A storage device can comprise storage media that can have differing characteristics. A storage manager can obtain the characteristics of a storage device, and of individual portions, such as individual media, of the storage device, by querying the device, querying a database, or through empirical observation or testing. The storage manager can then divide the media of the storage device into storage media parts, that can comprise some or all of the individual storage media. Data can then be stored on one or more storage media parts in accordance with the information provided by metadata associated with the data, such that the data is stored on storage media parts that are optimal for such data, from among the available storage media parts, based on the information from the associated metadata."

The patent application was filed on April 29, 2009 (12/432,338).