Which country invented the USB flash drive?

Domestic media usually think that Deng Guoshun and John Cheng are the inventors of USB flash drives. These two people invented the world's first flash drive in 1999, and in July 2002 and February 2004, they obtained the official authorization of the global basic invention patent of flash drive in China and the United States respectively. In fact, from 1998 to 2000, many companies in the world claimed to be the first to invent USB flash drives. There are also some different companies that claim to be the first to conceive or explain in detail, or to manufacture or apply for patents; Some companies even claim to be the first companies in the market to sell such flash drives. Trek is the first company in the market to sell this USB data storage based on flash memory. However, the patent they applied for did not specify this new USB flash memory, but a general data storage device. However, the company claims that Deng Guoshun and John Cheng were employees of Trek before 2000, and were responsible for the research and development of Driver. Trek claimed that they were the first company to conceive and manufacture thumb drives. Hein Dan, CEO of the company, once said, "When we first introduced the thumb disk product in the first half of 2000, we believed that this small device could change the way customers around the world store and exchange information." "Its potential makes Trek willing to invest and protect its intellectual property rights." Trek owns the thumb disc patents in Japan, Taiwan Province Province, South Korea, Britain, New Zealand and Singapore. M-Systems (now SanDisk) from Israel began to develop this equipment from 1998. They registered the domain name of diskonkey.com on June 1999, and clearly pointed out that this brand-new USB flash memory device is under development. In the patent description, M-System gives a strict and comprehensive description of this new device. Although M-Systems has made great achievements in flash memory technology, I am afraid that this small product will create such a big market one day when it focuses on the motherboard DOC chip and ignores the U disk market. IBM's invention file RPS 8-1999-0201(1September 999) is the earliest known document that accurately and completely describes USB-FD, but it is limited to USB-FD. M-Systems helped IBM produce DiskOnKey, which was first sold in North America at the end of 2000. At the same time, Lexar also claims that this is the first flash card product-in 2000, they introduced the CompactFlash card with built-in USB function. Lexer also provides a set of card reader and USB cable, so that users don't need to prepare another USB hub. Background link1999 In April, M-Systems applied for a flash memory patent in the United States. 1999165438+1October, Deng Guoshun and John Cheng applied for a patent. In February 2000, Trek applied for a patent for flash memory in Singapore. In July 2002, the State Patent Office granted patents to Deng Guoshun and John Cheng. In September 2002, Netac sued Beijing Huaqi Information Digital Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Acer Information Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Fuguanghui Electronics Co., Ltd. and related agents for infringement of invention patent rights. In September 2002, Huaqi filed a request for invalidation of Netac's patent with the Patent Reexamination Board of the State Intellectual Property Office, which was accepted. In September 2002, Huaqi received a patent infringement complaint from Netac and other companies transferred by Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court. In June 2003, M-Systems filed a request for invalidation of Netac's patent with the Patent Reexamination Board of the State Intellectual Property Office of China, which was accepted. From June, 5438 to February, 2003, the Patent Reexamination Board of the State Intellectual Property Office conducted an oral hearing on the patent invalidation case of Huaqi Information et al. v. Deng Guoshun and John Cheng 99 1 1725.6. On April 3, 2004, Deng Guoshun and John Cheng v Huaqi's patent infringement case opened in Shenzhen. On April 13, 2004, Trek sued M-Systems, Ritech and other manufacturers for infringement in Singapore. U disk development memorabilia 1988, flash memory-flash memory appeared. Although the application technology of flash memory is becoming more and more mature, it is difficult for flash memory to be widely used because of its high cost. 1997 with the continuous strengthening of Intel's support for USB on the motherboard chipset, a large number of peripherals began to adopt USB interfaces. 1997, Samsung and Toshiba completed the process improvement, greatly reducing the production cost of flash memory, and flash memory has the conditions for popularization and application. 1998 With the increasing popularity of USB peripherals, Microsoft announced that it would directly provide USB drivers in Windows 2000/ME. During the period of 1998, graduate students in Tsinghua University often urged the production and public display of USB flash drives. Later, the design was applied to the USB flash drive of Shenzhen Luwen Company. In 2000, due to the popularity of Windows 2000 and the reduction of Flash cost, a large number of domestic IT enterprises joined the U disk industry one after another. In June 2002, china electronic chamber of commerce organized Lenovo, Huaqi, Zhongke and other enterprises to establish China Mobile Storage Industry Association. In 2002, China's mobile storage market grew by 2400%, and China became the largest U disk producer and consumer market in the world. In 2003, the Ministry of Information Industry officially announced the establishment of a mobile storage industry standard working group, and organized Lenovo, Huaqi, Putian and other enterprises to jointly formulate industry standards and standardize the market.