Patent ID: 7787953

Claim:
A telemetry system for enabling radio-frequency (RF) communications between an implantable medical device and an external device over a wireless medium, comprising: an antenna, an RF transmitter/receiver, and a controller incorporated into each of the implantable and external devices, wherein the RF transmitter/receiver of each device are tunable and may be switched among a plurality of different RF communications channels that differ in frequency; an inductive link transmitter/receiver incorporated into each of the implantable and external devices enabling communication over an inductive link; wherein the controller is interfaced to the RF transmitter/receiver and inductive link transmitter/receiver in each device; wherein the external device controller is programmed to select a particular one of the plurality of RF channels as a designated first RF channel for use in an RF communications session with the implantable device and communicate the choice of the designated first RF channel to the implantable device using the inductive link; wherein the external device controller is programmed to monitor the designated first RF channel for activity until the channel is found to be not busy and then establish a communications session with the implantable device over the designated first RF channel; and, wherein the external device and implantable device controllers are programmed to revert to a previously agreed upon fall-back RF channel upon a degradation in the quality of the designated first RF channel to such an extent so as to be non-operational.