I've just read the paper; it's academically very cool yet practically useless (at least for now).
It uses 24GHz for RX, 60GHz for TX so retransmission is just a fantasy of the "journalist". It requires +45dBm output power (32watts!) at the Basestation to power it at 50cm range, so less practical than regular RFID for now really (and absolutely no chance of ever working as a mesh).