Patent ID: 8175289

Claim:
A digital audio distribution network comprising: a plurality of nodes for sending and receiving digital audio and for sending and receiving attention signals, each node comprising a plurality of junctions and a processor; at least one transmission line, each line connecting a junction of one node to a junction of another node and transmitting the audio in one direction from the one node to the another node, to form the network; a node in the plurality of nodes for receiving a user command from a user input, the command indicating a function to be performed, encoding the command, combining the command into digital audio, and sending the audio; and another node in the plurality of nodes for receiving the audio, decoding the command, and performing the command's function; wherein each processor is programmed to perform the encoding, the combining, and the decoding; and wherein each processor is further programmed to implement the function of reversing the audio direction between two connected nodes, one node of the two nodes a first receiving node and the other a second sending node, by the following process: the first node's processor causes it to cease receiving audio from the second node, then to send an attention signal to the second node, then to transmit audio to the second node, and when the second node receives the attention signal, its processor causes it to cease sending audio to the first node and then to receive audio from the first node.