Syscan Granted Canadian RFID Patent

The company says it thinks the new technology will help to lower the cost of RFID tags.

A Canadian company, Syscan, has been awarded a patent by its countrys Patent Office that may help lower the cost of RFID tags, Syscans officials said.

The patent is for technology dubbed iCE, or I Communicate Effectively, which uses the concepts of low-power wireless communication networks.

The patent covers 20 different aspects of iCE technology, which uses an energy-efficient dynamic bi-directional communications protocol that uses what the company refers to as transmission windows to reduce the power consumption of RFID tag batteries, Syscan officials said.

The power consumption required to enable RFID tags to read RFID readers through communication barriers is one of the aspects that raises the price of tags, according to Syscan.

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The iCE technology is able to access tags that would normally be out of range by substituting others that are within range to temporarily act as communication bridges that allow RFID data to be relayed to readers.

"The architecture of the tags can be defined by the reader or the tags according to their positions and characteristics," officials said.

Click here to read more about Wal-Mart Canadas RFID strategy.

"Once configured, the system is equipped with enough intelligence and is sufficiently dynamic to enable it to operate by itself without human intervention, regardless of whether or not there is a change in the position of the tags or their environment."

Syscan plans to begin licensing iCE to other RFID vendors just about immediately.

The company has already begun the process of applying patent protection in other countries, including the United States, European Union, most of Asia and Australia.

"It has taken over a year for the patent allowance to come through since we unveiled our RFID breakthrough," said Axel Striefler, president and CEO of Syscan.

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