Patent 4958381 Issued on September 18, 1990. Estimated Expiration Date: January 26, 2008. Estimated Expiration Date is calculated based on simple USPTO term provisions. It does not account for terminal disclaimers, term adjustments, failure to pay maintenance fees, or other factors which might affect the term of a patent.
An information transmitting system capable of two way communication, suitable for use in transmitting information signals between a central control unit and a plurality of terminal apparatus units. Each terminal apparatus unit may be located at a different passenger seat in an aircraft, a train, a bus, or the like. The signals transmitted from each terminal apparatus to the central control unit are transmitted by way of two channels. In one operating mode, one channel is used as a random access channel, and the other is used as a polling channel. When polling transmission is not effected, the polling channel is used as a second random access channel, so that the system may efficiently transmit many information signals on two random access channels.
Other References
"Design Technique for Multiplexing Asynchronous Digital Video and Audio Signal," by J. H. Stott, IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. COM-26, No. 5, May 1987
Boeing Electronics Company brochure entitled "Putting the Future of Passenger Services and Entertainment at your Fingertips," 1987, six pages
Boeing, "Proceedings of the SCAR Conference--Part 2," Mar. 1977, pp. 854 and 86