Communications: electrical – Condition responsive indicating system – Specific condition
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-12
2002-11-05
Hofsass, Jeffery (Department: 2632)
Communications: electrical
Condition responsive indicating system
Specific condition
C340S572400, C340S572700, C340S568100, C340S870030
Reexamination Certificate
active
06476718
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention, in general relates to luggage and, more particularly, to devices and systems that are adapted for use with automated baggage handling systems and which are of use in identifying and locating the rightful owner of an article of luggage.
When traveling, luggage is too often either lost or delayed. While this may occur whenever an owner is separated from his luggage it is an especially troublesome situation when traveling by airplane. As such, airlines attach tags and/or labels to pieces of luggage to aid in identifying the owner and the ultimate intended destination of the luggage.
For example, some airlines attach a bar coded label to a suitable location, such as to a handle of an article of luggage during “check-in”. Data is entered at that time into a computer system of the airline as to the destination of the owner and therefore also the destination of the luggage including the intended flights that the owner and the luggage are to take.
Then, as the luggage is mechanically conveyed into the baggage (i.e., luggage) handling areas of the airport, bar code scanners will periodically scan the bar code labels, perform a “look-up” accessing the data base of the airline's computer system and then direct the luggage via a system of various conveyors and baggage transport personnel to its intended flight of departure (or upon arriving to the appropriate location for retrieval) where it is loaded as cargo. These types of systems are generally referred to as “automated baggage (or luggage) handling systems”.
While these types of systems often works well, they do include, and therefore suffer from, certain disadvantages.
For one thing, when an article of luggage (i.e., a suitcase or a garment bag) is misplaced, it likely will not depart on its intended flight. Even worse, it can depart on a flight that is traveling to an errant location, possibly taking the luggage even further away from its intended destination.
There is no way to predict how soon each and every error that results in misplacing or misdirecting an article of luggage can be corrected. In some cases the articles of luggage are lost for days. Sometimes, they are never found and sometimes, when found, they can never be reunited with their proper owners.
For example, if a person is traveling on business and the nature of his business requires that he travel to many locations, he may only be intending to stay at any particular location for a day or two or perhaps for only a fraction of a day.
A several day delay in locating that person's luggage can be severe as is described in greater detail hereinafter.
The person can leave the hotel or location of a business meeting, for example, where he said he would be staying at well before the luggage is recovered and can be delivered to that hotel or location. There is risk that as he travels to other locations, the logistics involved will simply prevent his lost luggage from ever being returned to him. This is because it may never catch up to him as he travels from location to location.
Hopefully, there will be an address label affixed to the luggage that identifies the permanent residence of the owner so that eventually, it can be delivered to him. Still, this is of no avail to the traveler who is separated from his luggage while he travels.
No matter how well intended is the attempt to return his luggage, it simply may not possible to anticipate many days in advance where the person will be at some time in the future. If the person is staying only briefly at each location and is traveling from location to location or if his travel plans are volatile and subject to change at any moment, the mere act of trying to convey a lost piece of luggage to that person may well result in sending it to where he was and never to where he is.
Eventually, the process will be aborted because it simply becomes excessively cost prohibitive and the luggage and all of its contents will not be reunited with its proper owner, at least not while he is traveling and perhaps, never. Recompense will be made in accordance with agreements and the liability of the carrier, in this example the airline.
Accordingly, there will be considerable added expense that is incurred by the airline as it attempts to locate and then deliver the lost article to its owner. Add to this the fact that there will be an added expense, perhaps substantial, when a final financial settlement for damages is made if the luggage is not returned in due course of time and the owner is forced to replace the contents (as may well occur while traveling).
Add to that also the inconvenience and emotional upset that is experienced by the owner and it is obvious that everyone loses in this instance. The owner may experience ill feelings and simply not wish to travel by that particular carrier again.
This rather common type of a reaction in response to an airline having lost their luggage is likely to add further cost to the airline because it will experience a loss in future revenues because that person will simply avoid using that airline in the future.
Other disadvantages are associated with mechanically having to produce an additional identifying tag or label and of having to affix the tag or label to the luggage.
This increases the time that is required for “check-in”, a problem that is all too well known by air travelers. It also adds expense to the airline in that they must first produce the tag or label (for example, the bar coded label) and then affix it properly to the article of luggage. This is a significant issue to the airlines and it is discussed in greater detail hereinafter.
By attaching the tag or the label to the luggage, it is generally assumed that the airline incurs an added liability to the extent that the tag or label that is applied by them should be affixed properly and that it should therefore remain attached to the luggage throughout its useful life, which typically includes one or more airline flights from a particular departure location until it reaches a particular destination location at which time it is to be reclaimed by the owner. Once reclaimed, it will have served its purpose.
Therefore, if the tag or label should be torn or if it should happen to fall off, the airline may be held liable for not properly affixing it to the luggage in the first place.
Any tag or label that an airline may attach is of necessity temporary. Previously, a string or an elastic strap was commonly used to secure the tag or label to the luggage by passing the string or strap through a loop or through a handle that is attached to and a part of the luggage.
While either of these methods may still be used on occasion, a more common current way to secure the label (i.e., the bar coded label) to the luggage is by passing the label through the luggage handle and securing a first end of the label to a remaining end by the use of an adhesive, thereby forming a loop around the handle.
The object, as mentioned hereinabove, is that the tag or label should remain affixed to the article of luggage until it is reclaimed by the owner. At that time it must be readily removable by the owner.
It would obviously become untenable if each tag or label were attached in such a manner so as to render it difficult, if not impossible, for the owner to remove. Not only would a plurality of “left-over” tags and labels look unsightly, but they would tend to increase the potential that confusion and a “miss-reading” of the current tag or label might occur on some subsequent flight.
Therefore, there is an inevitable contradiction of needs. On the one hand a tag or label that is durable is needed while on the other one that is also easily and readily removable is needed. Both needs, as they relate to a temporary label, cannot be simultaneously optimally satisfied. Compromise is required.
These problems, though discussed primarily for air travel, relate to all modalities of travel. Luggage may be lost by any carrier or by any responsible person at any time. It does not matter who t
Cartwright Christopher Leslie Mutlow
Cartwright John Mutlow
Hofsass Jeffery
Nguyen Hung
Rinne, Jr. Risto A.
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