The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 20, 2001
Filed:
May. 18, 2000
Mitsutaka Ikeda, Kawasaki, JP;
Fujitsu Limited, Kawasaki, JP;
Abstract
According to the present invention, access to a password area in a nonvolatile memory cannot be granted by simple supply of an address in a normal order. According to one preferable mode, for instance, a trap address is set in the password area so that reading information from the password area is permitted only when the password area is accessed without accessing the trap address, whereas when the password area is accessed through the trap address, information reading is inhibited, or meaningless data is output or the information in the password area is destroyed. According to another preferable mode, the order in which access is made to the password area can arbitrarily be set so that accessing the password area in this order alone can permit the password area to be read, whereas when access to the password area is made in a different order, information reading is inhibited, or meaningless data is output or the information in the password area is destroyed. According to both modes, while the recording medium where the trap address or accessing order information is stored is a nonvolatile memory, it is constructed in such a manner that writing and reading are both prohibited. This invention can make it harder to gain access to a password area which is used to protect against illegitimate copying and can provide a nonvolatile memory having a stronger copy protection capability.