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:
Jun. 11, 2002
Filed:
Nov. 03, 2000
Eric A. Whitehill, Fort Wayne, IN (US);
Tim Dempsey, Fort Wayne, IN (US);
ITT Manufacturing Enterprises, Inc., Wilmington, DE (US);
Abstract
A network of nodes communicates using plural, shared parallel data channels and a separate reservation channel. Access to the data channels is coordinated among the nodes by communicating message requests and corresponding replies on the reservation channel. In addition to a primary transmitter/receiver (e.g., a modem), each node includes a secondary receiver that permits each node to continuously monitor the reservation channel. When not engaged in a message transfer on one of the data channels, the primary receiver monitors the reservation channel. If the primary becomes engaged in a message transfer, the secondary receiver is activated and monitors the reservation channel. Use of the secondary receiver avoids loss of channel access information resulting from use of a single receiver for both the reservation and data transfer mechanisms. By transmitting requests for channel access on the reservation channel and continuously monitoring the reservation channel, message collisions are dramatically reduced.