Patent ID: 7777610

Claim:
A method, comprising: controlling an interrogator using an application program on a host computer to receive data from the interrogator; transmitting, from the interrogator, a forward link signal to implement an arbitration scheme to determine an identification code of a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag from among a plurality of RFID tags contained within an RF field of the interrogator, the forward link signal comprising: a parameter to select a group of RFID tags from the plurality of RFID tags, and return link configuration information; processing, via the RFID tag attached to an item of inventory and storing the identification code to track the item via the host computer, at least a portion of the forward link signal to compare the parameter to a value stored in the RFID tag to determine if the RFID tag is a member of the group; and transmitting, from the tag, a return link signal modulated in accordance with a modulation scheme selected by the return link configuration information, wherein each bit of the return link signal is multiplied by a selectable one of at least three subcarrier sequences selected by the return link configuration information.