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:
Aug. 28, 2001
Filed:
May. 04, 1994
Mats Håkan Dahlin, Guilford, GB;
Mats Erland Eriksson, Boden, SE;
Lennart Adolf Nils Löfgren, Vikingstad, SE;
Telefonaktieboalget LM Ericsson (publ), Stockholm, SE;
Abstract
In a system having a master device coupled to a slave device by means of an interface, wherein a function of the master device includes downloading a control program to the slave device, an apparatus for providing the master device with capability information corresponding to the slave device has hardware for reading the capability information from a predefined portion of the control program, and hardware for storing the capability information for use by the master device during a communications operation with the slave device. An encoding scheme for the capability information permits new functions to be added without having to re-encode pre-existing information corresponding to pre-existing slave devices. The capability information is encoded as a first vector and a second vector. A new function that is supported by a new slave device is added to the first vector when the new function is not supported by any pre-existing slave device. Default values are provided for pre-existing first vectors, to indicate that the new function is not supported by the pre-existing slave devices. Similarly, a new function that is supported by all pre-existing slave devices but not supported by a new slave device is added to the second vector, with appropriate default values provided for pre-existing second vectors.