Patent ID: 8203432

Claim:
A method of inventorying data carriers by means of a communication station, wherein said communication station and each data carrier among said data carriers are brought into communicative connection, and wherein each data carrier brought into communicative connection with the communication station generates a response signal after at least one operational condition has been fulfilled and supplies said response signal to a modulation means for modulating the response signal for transmission to enable the inventorying of said each data carrier, wherein said each data carrier, before generating its response signal from identification data and additional data, tests whether another data carrier is giving its response signal, wherein said each data carrier discontinues the generation of its response signal from the identification data and the additional data if said another data carrier is already giving its response signal to achieve an energy-saving operation, and wherein, if no response signal of said another data carrier is provided, the response signal is generated from the identification data and the additional data and supplied to the modulation means and delivered via a data carrier transmission means, wherein the generation of the response signal is performed prior to modulating the response signal via the modulation means for transmission.