Patent ID: 8788139

Claim:
A multi-protocol vehicle diagnostic interface device, comprising: a processor; a memory communicating with said processor and containing indicators of vehicle operational parameters from which a user may select to set up different ones of multiple filters; a communication module communicating with said processor; and a plurality of protocol bus modules supporting different multiple vehicle diagnostic protocols and having said multiple filters for set up in correspondence with the indicators of user-selected parameters; wherein said processor is configured to control said memory and modules to cooperate with one another to find the correct vehicle diagnostic protocol out of multiple supported vehicle diagnostic protocols, define the indicators corresponding to user-selected parameters by saving user-initiated filter setups, read data regarding user-selected parameters from a vehicle diagnostic communication port according to the filter setups, prior to pushing the data to the communication module, modify the data depending on the correct vehicle diagnostic protocol found to form vehicle messages regarding the user selected parameters, the vehicle messages being modified to have a unified format with a similar frame or frames regardless of the correct vehicle diagnostic protocol found, push the vehicle messages having said unified format to the communication module where the vehicle messages are wrapped in output messages having a unified structure, and output the output messages to an external communication device.