Patent ID: 7822944

Claim:
A method for random access retrieval of a requested data item stored in a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag, comprising: determining a first read size comprising at least one of (a) a smallest first read such that the first read has a high likelihood of providing all of bits needed to establish presence or absence of target identifiers with a low likelihood of a read-overrun error response from the RFID tag or (b) a largest first read such that the first read will incur an acceptably-low re-transmit rate due to signal-to-noise ratio with a low likelihood of a read-overrun error response from the RFID tag; performing the first read of a memory bank in the RFID tag to retrieve a set of identifier indices stored in a packed object in the memory bank and a length of the packed object, wherein the packed object comprises: a length section including an indication of a number of identifiers in the packed object, an identifier section including the set of identifier indices representing an identifier for the requested data item contained within the packed object, and a data section encoding a data portion associated with the requested data item included in the identifier section; determining whether a retrieved identifier index in the set of identifier indices represents the requested data item; if the retrieved identifier index represents the requested data item, performing a second read of the memory bank, wherein the second read accesses the data section of the memory bank including the requested data item; and receiving data based on the second read, wherein the received data are processed, transmitted to a remote server, or combinations thereof.