Patent ID: 7949372

Claim:
A system comprising: a substantially flat top surface having a plurality of electrical conductive contact points, the contact points configured to form an electrical contact with conducting contacts of a secondary device placed on the surface, wherein the conducting contacts of the secondary device form electrical contact with at least two distinct contact blocks of the surface, electrical current flowing between the surface and the at least one secondary device, the electrical contact configured to transfer power and data; a switched mode power supply configured to provide power to the contact points; a power line communication bypass circuit configured to send and receive data signals over an existing power line infrastructure, the data signals bypassing the power supply, and the power line communication bypass circuit configured to filter out high frequency switching noise from the switched mode power supply; a bi-directional radio frequency repeater circuit configured to filter and amplify the data signals, the bi-directional radio frequency repeater circuit including one or more RF switches and an RF power detection circuit configured to control the one or more RF switches; wherein the RF power detection circuit monitors the power level of the amplified data signals until the amplified data signal reaches a preset power level; and wherein the power line communication bypass circuit uses a 1:1 ratio high frequency transformer and a parallel RC circuit to filter out lower frequency components.