Patent ID: 8825908

Claim:
A method of identifying devices on a bus, comprising: assigning commonly a group device ID to each of a plurality of devices connected to a bus, wherein each of the plurality of devices not having uniquely assigned to it a respective unique device identifier (ID) of the bus, and wherein the group device ID is one of a plurality of unique device IDs of the bus; pooling the plurality of devices connected to a bus; selecting, after the pooling, one of the plurality of devices using at least one selection criteria, the at least one selection criteria identifying the one of the plurality of devices uniquely among all of the plurality of devices; reassigning one of the plurality of unique device IDs of the bus to the selected one of the plurality of devices uniquely; withdrawing, before the reassigning, the reassigned unique device ID from another device connected to the bus, the reassigned unique device ID having been previously assigned to the other device; adding, after the withdrawing, the other device to the pooled plurality of devices; and wherein the number of devices in the plurality of devices is greater than a maximum number of available unique device identifiers (IDs) of the bus, and wherein the reassigned unique device ID is assigned to the selected device is for as long as the selection criteria matches to the selected device.