Communications: electrical – Aircraft alarm or indicating systems
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-06
2001-01-23
Wu, Daniel J. (Department: 2736)
Communications: electrical
Aircraft alarm or indicating systems
C340S971000, C340S870030, C348S086000, C455S001000, C379S049000, C379S171000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06177887
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to multi-passenger vehicle service systems for use in commercial aircraft, particularly to such a system for more efficiently enabling and processing passenger service requests for food, drink or entertainment.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The first commercial air transport vehicles to enter service were staffed with professional nurses to provide a level of care for the paying passengers. As air transportation gained both safety and a sense of routineness, the nurses were replaced with “stewardesses”, or today, cabin attendants to provide certain services, such as beverages, meal service, and entertainment.
The prior art is replete with examples of means and devices to improve service. One can find over 600 patents relating to aircraft cabin systems intended for the comfort, ease, or service of passengers. Some of this prior art relates to food or beverage service, and some relates to various entertainment forms, including audio programs, television programs, games, or comfort items, such as reading lights, air outlets, and the like. Reading the prior art, one might conclude that the availability and delivery of service aboard multi-passenger vehicles is a highly perfected art. However this is far from the truth. In fact, despite the volume of prior art, the satisfaction with current levels of service aboard commercial aircraft is so low that cabin attendants receive training in the art of defusing or minimizing threats and actual acts of physical violence by passengers directed towards such attendants.
Numerous means and methods of delivering entertainment programs to each seat of a multi-passenger vehicle are known. Some transmit passenger wishes and wants to the cabin attendants with the goal of reducing work load. Other means are known to alert cabin attendants to a passenger need. Still other means and methods known deliver entertainment programs to each seat of a multi-passenger vehicle, with the passenger selecting the specific program desired.
Presently food and materials are made available for distribution to passengers based on general statistical analysis of past needs, but fail to account for unused materials, or materials lost or damaged through handling. For example, it has been a problem since the advent of liquor service on commercial air transportation to account for discrepancies between the beginning and ending inventory of bottles of alcohol. It is generally left to the word of cabin attendants to account for discrepancies between left-over inventory and any money collected for items.
It is a given in modem air travel that persons seated at the far rear of the coach cabin (or sometimes in the center if service is started from the front or rear) will sometimes be told that certain meal entrees are “out” with their choice restricted to a lesser selection than those people sitting in the front half of the cabin. This often leads to disagreeable confrontations between passenger and attendant, sometimes leading to physical attacks. U.S. Pat. No. 4,774,514 to Hildebrandt et al., Sep. 27, 1988, addresses the complexity of delivering different services to different classes of seats (coach, business, first, etc.), and the problems of altering the services when the class of seating arrangement is altered within the aircraft. While assisting in the re-configuration of an aircraft, this system does nothing to solve the service delivery aboard the aircraft during flight.
From U.S. Pat. No. 4,866,515 to Tagawa et al., Sep. 12, 1989, we learn of an entertainment system for transmitting video, audio, and game signals from a central location to each seat. As many as 30 patents address the function of providing multiple entertainment signals, such that each seat occupant can select from a variety of entertainment sources. All of these systems are variations on the theme of delivering multiple “programs” to passengers, but fail to alleviate the underlying problems inherent with delivering services aboard a confined aircraft.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,896,209 to Matsuzaki et al., Jan. 23, 1990, shows a polling system to provide cabin attendants with such information as status of seat belts, whether seats are upright, etc. The polling signal also provides information, such as which audio or video program each seat occupant is using. This system is a piecemeal solution to a complex situation.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,311,302 to Berry et al., May 10, 1994 shows a means of combining an interactive video monitor with a touch-sensitive screen to enable a passenger to interact with a video screen to order food, drinks, or items. Such technology is expensive, heavy, and easily prone to passenger abuse or damage.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,808,661 to Infiesto et al., Sep. 15, 1998 shows an audio/video intercom system which permits each passenger in a multi-passenger vehicle to communicate directly with a flight attendant. This system claims to eliminate one trip by a cabin attendant for each service request, but fails to address the possibility of a plurality of passengers desiring service at the same time, or numerous passengers desiring assistance at a commonly busy time such as immediately preceding meal service. This system invites the proverbial “busy signal” to be the only response to passengers during busy times.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,896,129 to Murphy et al., Apr. 20, 1999, addresses the needs of visually and/or hearing impaired passengers. This system provides sight-impaired passengers with Braille handsets and closed captioning for hearing impaired. While addressing the needs of special circumstance persons, this system does not improve the greater need of satisfying large numbers of people within the small confines of a vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,835,604 to Kondo et al., May 30, 1989, creates a variation of the now commonplace attendant call lights. The system anticipates the means by which an attendant can control individual seat request lights. The only benefit is the ability of an attendant to remotely turn off a call light, but the attendant would be required to be at the seat to receive a request, and then return to the seat to deliver the requested item.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,696 to Salter Jr., et al., Dec. 4, 1990, anticipates a desire to satisfy passenger queries for information about their flight, and provides the means by which flight information is presented to the passengers. This system creates a piecemeal approach to providing information, and obtaining information to a multiplicity of passengers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,289,272 to Rabowsky et al., Feb. 22, 1994, shows a multi-signal, multiplexed video distribution system intended to deliver a multiplicity of programs to each seat of the vehicle. As with other similar systems, this system does not gather data from the passengers that would relieve attendant workload, assist in analysis of future service needs, or reduce potential problematic flight attendant—passenger confrontations.
Some prior art addresses special technical needs in order to provide data transmission aboard an aircraft containing numerous radio navigation devices. U.S. Pat. No. 5,705,860 to Ninh et al., Jan. 6, 1998, is such a case, dealing with the emission of EMI- and ESD-type radiation from high-speed data transmission devices. While this addresses a problem known to exist in the transmission of data within the confined space of an aircraft, it does nothing to solve service delivery problems associated with that data.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,835,127 to Booth et al., Nov. 10, 1998, shows an “Integrated electronic system utilizing a universal interface to support telephony and other communications services.” This patent is particularly interesting because it seeks to offer a single, complete solution to the issue of multi-passenger vehicle service, but fails to achieve its apparent goals. Booth offers substantial comment about the disadvantageous result of failing to offer an “integrated electronic system that can be implemented in a piecemeal fashion to provide in-flight amenities without providing telephony or display services . .
Pham Toan
Wu Daniel J.
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