Who invented the Flash Drive?

1 ANSWERS

1. Guest9974
   

   Trek Technology and IBM began selling the first USB flash drives commercially in 2000. Singaporean company Trek Technology sold a model dubbed the "ThumbDrive," and IBM marketed the first such drives in North America, with its product the "DiskOnKey" (which was manufactured by the Israeli company M-Systems). IBM's USB flash drive became available on December 15, 2000, and had a storage capacity of 8 MB, more than five times the capacity of the commonly used floppy disks (floppy disks having a capacity of 1.44MB).
   In 2000 Lexar introduced a Compact Flash (CF) card with a USB connection, and a companion card read/writer and USB cable that eliminated the need for a USB hub.
   On July 24, 2002 Netac Technology was granted a highly-contested Chinese patent for the USB flash drive.
   In 2004 Trek Technology brought several lawsuits against other USB flash drive manufacturers and distributors in an attempt to assert its patent rights to the USB flash drive. A court in Singapore ordered competitors to cease selling similar products that would be covered by Trek's patent, but a court in the United Kingdom revoked one of Trek's patents in that country.

   Report (0) (0)  |   12 years, 8 month(s) ago