Patents by Inventor Horace W. Heffner, III

Horace W. Heffner, III has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 5130983
    Abstract: Tis method provides high utilization collision free access to a digital pulse communications medium with priority provided by message class and/or terminal type, regardless of network topology. This is accomplished by utilizing a controller which broadcasts a series of polling frames to all terminals, the response to each of which is a single bit (pulse) from any terminal remaining eligible to respond. All responses to a poll are logically OR'ed by the network to provide a combined response frame at the controller, thus making the process ambivalent to collisions. A polling frame and associated response frame, called a polling cycle, determines one digit of a selected address. A terminal not selected in a given cycle is blocked from responding further, until its high order digit(s) are again selected. Each polling cycle is therefore context sensitive, thus maximizing the information flow per poll and minimizing data flow and network travel time per terminal selection.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 1990
    Date of Patent: July 14, 1992
    Inventor: Horace W. Heffner, III