Patents received April 4, 2006:

Western Digital (Fremont) Inc., for "Submicron track-width pole-tips for electromagnetic transducers, No. 7,023,658." Inventors were Billy W. Crue Jr., Pittsburgh; Kenneth E. Knapp, Livermore, Calif.; Ronald A. Barr, Mountain View, Calif.; and Zhupei Shi, San Jose, Calif. In accordance with the present invention, a trailing pole-tip for an electromagnetic transducer is formed as a layer oriented substantially perpendicular to most if not all other layers of the transducer, allowing the pole-tip to be made much thinner than conventional pole-tips. The novel pole-tip may be formed on an edge or sidewall of a base layer instead of being formed on top of an existing layer. An advantage of such sidewall formation is that errors in pole-tip thickness can be much less than standard error tolerances for conventional pole-tip thickness. Another advantage is that such a pole-tip can be formed to a narrow width while the transducer is being mass produced along with perhaps thousands of other transducers on a wafer, instead of being formed individually on a media-facing surface after separation from other transducers. Having a greatly reduced pole-tip width can significantly reduce the track width so that many more tracks can fit on a media surface, providing large increases in areal density. For conciseness this summary merely points out a few salient features in accordance with the invention, and does not provide any limits to the invention, which is defined below in the claims.

International Business Machines Corp., for "Data management application programming interface failure recovery in a parallel file system, No. 7,024,582." Inventors were Boaz Shumeli, Pittsburgh; Irit Loy, John Marberg, and Zvi Yehudai, all of Haifa, Israel; Roger Haskin, Morgan Hill, Calif.; Frank Schmuck, Campbell, Calif.; James Wyllie, Monte Sereno, Calif. The present invention relates generally to computer file systems, and specifically to implementation of data management applications in parallel file systems.

Patents received April 11, 2006:

Jeffrey Zehner and Erika Zehner, both of Pittsburgh, for "Magic bean wishes, No. 7,024,817." The present invention is directed to a novelty item. More particularly, the present invention is directed to the novelty item as well as a method of making the item, in which the novelty item is comprised of a bean or similar dicot seed, which is etched with an encouraging word, symbol, or the like, so the word becomes and remains visible throughout the germination period.

New-Matics Licensing LLC, for "Compressed gas-powdered gun simulating the recoil of a conventional firearm, No. 7,025,052." Inventor was Mark Schavone, Pittsburgh. This application relates to compressed gas powered guns. More specifically, the invention relates to training guns duplicating various characteristics of guns firing gunpowder propelled projectiles.

Joseph M. Kocott, Pittsburgh, for "Systems and methods for tracking alcoholic containers, No. 7,025,263." The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for tracking products. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems and methods for tracking alcoholic containers from the point of manufacture, through distribution, to a point of detection to enable verification of the purchaser or transferee of a specific alcoholic container.