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:
Jan. 13, 2004
Filed:
Mar. 19, 2001
Norbert A. Feliss, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Sylvia Lui Lee, San Jose, CA (US);
Karl A. Flechsig, Los Gatos, CA (US);
Donald Ray Gillis, San Jose, CA (US);
Thomas A. Gregory, Campbell, CA (US);
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.V., Amsterdam, NL;
Abstract
A device for monitoring lubricant within a disk drive includes a reservoir packet impregnated with lubricant. The reservoir packet is disposed between a first metal screen and a second metal screen such that a lubricant reservoir transducer is created. The capacitance of the lubricant reservoir packet is monitored and when it falls below a predetermined percentage of the initial capacitance, a user is warned to back up the files contained in the disk drive before failure due to lack of lubricant occurs.