Patent ID: 8516474

Claim:
A method for distributing an upgrade among a plurality of nodes communicatingly linked to each other to form an ad-hoc network, said network operating independently of a base node and beyond communication range of the base node; the method comprising: (a) temporarily locating a master node carrying an upgrade element and one or more tokens within communication range of one or more first nodes of said plurality of nodes; said upgrade element being appropriate for use by said one or more first nodes for effecting said upgrade, and said one or more tokens corresponding to the number of nodes of said ad-hoc network that are allowed to receive the upgrade; (b) performing an authentication process between the master node and the one or more first nodes; (c) transferring the upgrade element and at least one token of the one or more tokens from the master node to each of the one or more first nodes; (d) communicating said upgrade element and at least one or more remaining tokens from said one or more first nodes that received a plurality of tokens to at least one other node of said plurality of nodes using said ad-hoc network; and (e) repeating step (d) by said one or more first nodes and said at least one other node until said upgrade element is communicated to said plurality of nodes or until a number of nodes in the ad hoc network corresponding to the number of tokens transferred from the master node have received the upgrade.