Apricorn Assigned Patent

Apricorn, Poway, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,338,840) developed by Brown, Paul Cameron, Dobson, Mark Gordon, San Diego, CA, and Thai, Phuoc Minh, Poway, CA, for a “portable storage device that is self-convertible from being a removable disk to a fixed disk and from being a fixed disk to a removable disk.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A portable storage device can convert itself, without a host computer, from being a fixed disk to a removable disk and from being a removable disk to a fixed disk. The storage device may include a physical input device, a memory and a controller. The controller may determine, based on information stored within the storage device, whether the storage device is currently a fixed disk or a removable disk. The controller may then convert the storage device to a removable disk or a fixed disk, based on a control input and the determination. The control input may be received from the physical key input device. When the storage device is a removable disk and when a command from a host computer requests ejecting a memory within the storage device, the controller declines the request and instead electrically disengages the storage device from the host computer.”

The patent application was filed on March 29, 2018 (15/940,922).