Patent ID: 9411108
Filing Date: 2016-08-09
CPC Classification: G02B,H04Q

Claim Text:
1. A patch panel system of spatially reconfigurable, cross-connected strands for carrying a multiplicity of individual signals across an intervening gap between first and second planes with the strands defining a geometric braid within the gap, while the strands are individually held linear within the gap by tensioning means adjacent thereto, the geometric braid having a number of physically separate subbraids extending from a common extended, linear origin in a first plane and separating out at diverging angles to a second plane comprised of a multiplicity of columns of parallel, spaced apart terminals, comprising: a multiplicity of individual strands within each subbraid, said strands being disposed in an ordered hierarchical relation and topologically equivalent to an ordered stack of separable layers, each strand residing within a layer of the stack and ordered such that all layers of the stack to one side of the individual layer are characterized by a higher relation, and all layers on the opposite side are characterized by a lower relation, whereby any individual strand of a first subbraid may pass through a second subbraid in a knot-free fashion by subdividing the second subbraid such that the individual strand passes through the stack of layers at a location separating those layers in lower relation and those layers in higher relation.