The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 03, 1995
Filed:
Aug. 19, 1994
Marlin V Simmering, Wendell, NC (US);
Alcatel Network Systems, Inc., Richardson, TX (US);
Abstract
An automatic inventory retrieval system collects inventory and status information regarding the presence or absence of plug-in master and slave units in the slots of various shelves in a telecommunications terminal, such as a network element, by having independent masters in each shelf polling associated slaves at a relatively frequent polling rate and collecting information for storage until reception of a relatively infrequent master polling signal provided from a network control unit to all of the shelves. Communication between the control and the various shelves is provided over a balanced serial link interface comprising differential pairs, whereas communications internal to the shelves and the network control may be by means of single-ended signals. Redundancy in the network element is accommodated with a single serial link between the central control and the shelves by use of time-division multiplexing. The relatively frequent slave address polling in the shelves may be done on the order of every several hundred milliseconds or less, whereas the relatively infrequent polling of the master units in the shelves by the central control occurs at a frequency on the order of once every second or more.