Patent ID: 7936706

Claim:
A method, comprising: transmitting a first command from an interrogator in accordance with a first loop of an algorithm to identify a radio frequency identification (RFID) device, the first command comprising a field indicating that no number of valid bits of a comparison value are transmitted with the first command; responsive to the first command, receiving a first reply from the RFID device, the first reply comprising a first identifier of the RFID device; transmitting a second command from the interrogator in accordance with a second loop of the algorithm if the interrogator detects a collision in the first reply, the second command comprising a field indicating that one or more valid bits of the comparison value are transmitted with the second command, wherein the RFID device compares the valid bits of the comparison value with a portion of the first identifier, and, if equal, modulates an RF field provided by the interrogator to communicate a second reply to the interrogator in accordance with the algorithm, the second reply comprising at least a portion of the first identifier; and transmitting an indication of a number of time slots in which the interrogator is to receive one or more responses from one or more RFID devices in a field of the interrogator, and in response, receiving the one or more responses in one or more time slots of the number of time slots, wherein each of the one or more responses comprises a second identifier of each of the one or more RFID devices, respectively.