California Inventor Develops Replaceable Electronic Module Configuration Information Maintenance Method

ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 10 -- William J. Thomas of Carmichael, Calif., has developed replaceable electronics modules.

According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention provides methods and systems to automatically manage hardware and software capabilities of replaceable electronic modules as the modules are replaced or reassigned to different tasks. Each such module stores configuration information in a persistent memory. This configuration information enables the module to use only selected hardware and to execute only selected software."

An abstract of the invention, released by the Patent Office, said: "A replaceable electronic module manager stores copies of each module's configure information in a separate persistent memory. When a module is replaced, a copy of the configuration information is fetched from the module manager's persistent memory and sent to a replacement module, thereby making the replacement module functionally equivalent (from a point of view of which hardware can be used by the module or which software can be executed by the module) to the replaced module. In addition, when a module is assigned to a different task, appropriate configuration information can be sent to the module, so the module can appropriately perform the assigned task, such as use selected hardware or execute selected software."

The inventor was issued U.S. Patent No. 7,363,392 on April 22.

The patent has been assigned to Hewlett-Packard Development Co. LP, Houston.

The original application was filed on July 30, 2003, and is available at: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,363,392.PN.&OS=PN/7,363,392&RS=PN/7,363,392.

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