Yoshiro Nakamatsu
Nakamatsu claims IBM reached licensing agreements with him in the late 1970s. He also claims to have licensed his floppy disk to IBM in 1979, but that the details are "confidential". An IBM spokesman, Mac Jeffery, confirmed that the company did license some of his patents, but claimed they were not for the floppy disk, which he claimed IBM invented on its own. Another IBM spokesman, Brian Doyle, said they licensed 14 patents from Nakamatsu, but also claimed that they do not have anything to do with the floppy disk.
Floppy disk
Floppy disks, initially as media and later in and sizes, were a ubiquitous form of data storage and exchange from the mid-1970s into the first years of the 21st century. By 2006 computers were rarely manufactured with installed floppy disk drives; -inch floppy disks can be used with an external USB floppy disk drive, but USB drives for -inch, 8-inch, and non-standard diskettes are rare to non-existent. These formats are usually handled by older equipment.