ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 13 -- United States Patent no. 12,523,734, issued on Jan. 13, was assigned to Cisco Technology Inc..

"Cooperating delegated devices for backscattering communication and energy harvesting" was invented by Domenico Ficara (Chemin de la sue, Switzerland), Amine Choukir (Lausanne, Switzerland), Pascal Thubert (Roquefort-les-Pins, France), Leo Caldarola (Morrens, Switzerland), Mathieu Monney (Bussigny, Switzerland), Jerome Henry (Pittsboro, N.C.) and Arun G. Khanna (Sunnyvale, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A backscatter communication device assistant may be provided. A computing device may designate a client device as a backscatter communication device assistant. Next...