Minebea Assigned Patent

Minebea Co., Ltd., Kitasaku-gun, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,886,975) developed by Yang, Weihong, Yokohama, Japan, and Kobayashi, Daiki, Tokyo, Japan, for an “hard disk drive and pivot assembly bearing device.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A hard disk drive according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a pivot assembly bearing device with a shaft, rolling bearings and a sleeve, a cylindrical convex portion formed in a cover member at the upper side, protruding inward, and fixed to an upper end surface of the shaft, a convex portion formed on a base member at the lower side, protruding inward, and fixed to a lower end surface of the shaft, and a labyrinth gap formed by opposing an outer peripheral surface of the convex portion to an inner peripheral surface of a sleeve in a radial direction and/or by opposing an outer peripheral surface of the convex portion to the inner peripheral surface of the sleeve in a radial direction.”

The patent application was filed on September 13, 2016 (15/263,943).