Patent ID: 6874038

Claim:
A method of reporting a value of an attribute of a device to a host, wherein the attribute of the device is not explicitly recognized by a communication protocol being used for communication between the device and the host, comprising the steps of: (a) providing a predefined indicator in a communication from the device to the host, said predefined indicator being explicitly recognized in the communication protocol and indicating that the attribute of the device, which is not explicitly recognized by the communication protocol, is about to be transmitted to the host; (b) encoding the value of the attribute that is not explicitly recognized into a parameter that is explicitly recognized in the communication protocol; (c) communicating the parameter in which the value of the attribute is encoded to the host using the communication protocol; (d) receiving the predefined indicator, followed by the parameter in which the value of the attribute was encoded, in a communication from the device to the host; (e) detecting the predefined indicator at the host; and (f) in response to the predefined indicator being detected, decoding the attribute from the communication, to recover the value of the attribute of the device, so that the value of the attribute is available to the host.