Communications: electrical – Condition responsive indicating system – Specific condition
Reexamination Certificate
2001-10-11
2003-12-16
Pham, Toan N (Department: 2632)
Communications: electrical
Condition responsive indicating system
Specific condition
C340S572800, C340S870030, C340S870030
Reexamination Certificate
active
06664896
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
Identification and security devices are often kept small for convenience. Examples of such devices may include access cards and keys. The small size of these devices correspondingly means that it becomes easier to lose them. People commonly lose their keys and other such items. This may be serious, since without keys, an owner might not be able to operate their vehicles or enter their place of business.
Article finding systems are known in which a sound producing device is attached to the article to be found, e.g. the keychain. A separate remote device is actuated to cause the sound producing device to make noise. When the article finding device receives the special signal from the remote, it starts emitting its characteristic sound, thereby signaling its location.
This system may work so long as 1) the article is within earshot when the remote is pressed, 2) the owner can find the special remote, and 3) the article is within range of the remote. This seriously limits the use of such a system. For example, if the lost keys are under a pile of clothes, the user may not be able to hear the signaling sound. Moreover, if the user does not even have an idea of the geographical area of their keys (e.g. what room, what building, or the like,), then the system will not be able to find the keys, unless the remote happens to be in the same room as the keys.
SUMMARY OF INVENTION
The present application teaches a system in which a device may be associated with an article and is subsequently usable to find the location of the article. The embodiments describe a system which uses an electronic position detection location device along with a transceiver. The user can access the position from a publicly available network, e.g., a ‘client’ that is connected to an information server, such as a Web server or web service.
The client may be used to access the main system running on the server, and to request the position of the article by sending a request to position location detection device. That device has a transceiver which can receive these transmissions and also create transmissions back to the server which may be sent, correspondingly, to the client. Upon receiving a request, the transceiver determines its current position and reports information indicative of that current position. The position is then sent to the requesting client. The client can guide the user from their current location to the position of the article.
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Harris Scott Clifford
McDonald Jill Elizabeth
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