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:
Mar. 25, 2003
Filed:
May. 25, 1999
Brian David Petry, San Diego, CA (US);
John Bernard Dougall, Jr., Highland, UT (US);
3Com Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A contention resolution media access control protocol for a local area network (LAN) using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). The protocol takes advantage of OFDM frames available on the channel physical layer. Each LAN node is assigned a LAN-unique node identifier that is the index of a Fast-Fourier transform (FFT) frequency bin or other discrete tone in the free band. The node identifier is played in each contention cycle by each node that has data to transmit. Each contending node can easily determine which nodes are contending for transfer of data over the media channel from the presence of node identifiers within distinct frequency bins. Contention for the media channel is resolved by each contending node being giving access to the media channel in accordance with a preset order in which contending nodes will transmit.