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:
Feb. 01, 2000
Filed:
Dec. 06, 1996
Kenji Soga, Tokyo, JP;
NEC Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A unit switching apparatus includes first and second current units, a spare unit, and a switching unit. Each of the current units includes a communication circuit for performing communication in accordance with set operation mode data and a failure detection circuit for detecting and notifying occurrence of a failure in the communication circuit. The spare unit includes a communication circuit for performing communication in accordance with set operation mode data, a memory for separately storing the operation mode data set in the communication circuits of the current units, and a CPU for, when the occurrence of the failure is notified by the failure detection circuit, reading out the operation mode data corresponding to the faulty current unit from the memory, and setting the data in the communication circuit. The switching unit switches the faulty current unit to the spare unit when the occurrence of the failure is notified by the failure detection circuit.