Method and system to controlling an electronic instrument for metrological measurement

• US 20060266245A1
• Filed: 11/13/2003
• Published: 11/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wayne Fueling Systems LLC (Dover Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Dresser Incorporated (Nagano Keiki Company Limited)
• Inventors: Fonte, Giorgio Della, Spagnolatti, Mirko, Pera, Raffaele
• Granted Patent: US 7,974,734 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 101/494
• CPC Class Codes: G01F 15/007 comprising means to prevent fraud
• CPC Class Codes: G01F 25/10 of flowmeters
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/0855 involving a third party
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3821 Electronic credentials
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 13/02 by volume
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 9/026 for alarm, monitoring and auditing in vending machines or means for indication, e.g. when empty

Abstract

Control system of an electronic instrument for metrological measurements, comprising an electronic local processing unit including a handling application of said instrument. The system includes a control application for said handling application, which can be associated with said local processing unit, said control application being suitable for generating a univocal certification code for the application.

Claims

1. A control system of an electronic instrument for metrological measurements, comprising:

a handling application operable to control the instrument; and

a control application operable to verify integrity of said handling application,

said control application operable to generate a certification code for the handling application in response to verifying that the integrity is maintained.

2. The control system according to claim 1, wherein said code is associated with a stamp comprising an issuing date of said stamp (82), a reference code of the metrological measurement instrument, and a barcode (83) corresponding to said code.

3. The control system according to claim 1, wherein said control application and said handling application are communicably coupled via a network.

4. The control system according to claim 1, characterized in that it includes a dynamic library associated with said handling application, which, at the start of a handling application, activates said control application.

5. The control system according to claim 4, wherein said dynamic library is locally stored.

6. The control system according to claim 4, wherein said dynamic library is situated in said central processing unit.

7. The control system according to claim 1, wherein said univocal code is obtained using a cryptography algorithm.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further operable to generate an alert in response to determining a violation of the integrity of the handling application.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the violation comprises an unregistered modification of the handling application.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further operable to prevent the handling application from operating in response to determining the violation.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further operable to verify whether a certification associated with the handling application is valid.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the certification is verified using a digital signature.

8. A method for monitoring an electronic instrument for metrological measurements, comprising:

receiving information associated with a handling application for the instrument and locally stored; and

issuing a certification code associated with the handling application based on the information and operable to indicate that integrity of the handling application has been maintained.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein producing a code includes processing said information using a cryptography algorithm.

10. The method according to claim 8, wherein the received information comprises an authenticity certificate of the handling application.

11. The method according to claim 8, wherein the received information comprises an acknowledgment code of said local unit.

17. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

determining a violation of the integrity of the handling application; and

generating an alert in response to the violation.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising preventing the handling application from operating in response to determining the violation.

19. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

determining that a certification associated with the handling application is invalid; and

generating an alert in response to the determining the invalidity.

20. The method of claim 8, further comprising generating a stamp indicating that the integrity of the handling application is verified.

21. The method of claim 8, wherein the information is received at the start of the handling application.