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. 16, 2005
Filed:
Sep. 09, 2003
Stephen R. Payne, Cortland, NY (US);
Hugh Alan Jonas, Lansing, NY (US);
Stephen R. Payne, Cortland, NY (US);
Hugh Alan Jonas, Lansing, NY (US);
TransAct Technologies Incorporated, Wallingford, CT (US);
Abstract
The present invention provides a USB peripheral device belonging to a model line of identical peripheral devices. The peripheral device includes a USB interface enabling connection of the peripheral device to a USB port of a host device. The peripheral device also includes a memory for storing a USB device identifier. The USB device identifier comprises a standard USB device identifier that is the same for all the peripheral devices of the model line. The standard USB device identifier identifies each peripheral device in the model line to the host device as identical devices, thereby preventing device driver reinstallation and communication port reassignment when swapping one peripheral device for another peripheral device from the same model line. This enables identical peripheral devices to be 'hot-swappable' such that they can be interchanged on the host device, even when the host device is powered up and running. Corresponding methods are also provided.