TDK Assigned Patent

TDK Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,171,554) developed by Tomikawa, Satoshi, and Hirata, Kei, Tokyo, Japan, for a “magnetic disk unit and thermally-assisted magnetic recording method.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”The magnetic disk unit includes: a magnetic recording medium, a thermally-assisted magnetic recording head including a magnetic pole applying a recording magnetic field to the magnetic recording medium and a heating element heating the magnetic recording medium, and a controller allowing the heating element to perform a continuous heating operation at a first temperature for a first time period, and halting the heating operation of the heating element or allowing the heating element to perform a heating operation at a second temperature lower than the first temperature for a second time period that follows the first time period, the first time period having a length substantially equal to or less than a length of a time required for the magnetic recording medium to rotate one turn, and the second time period having a length substantially equal to or more than the length of the first time period.“

The patent application was filed on March 26, 2013 (13/850,480).