AUTOMATED APPLIANCE REGISTRATION

• US 20090078760A1
• Filed: 09/25/2008
• Published: 03/26/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Modu Limited (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Margalit, Ran, Katz, Hagay, Sherman, Itay, Ron, Uri, Bychkov, Eyal, Perry, Hagit
• Granted Patent: US 8,091,772 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 235/380
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/00 Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

A system for automatically registering an appliance, including a storage housed within an electrical appliance for storing identifying information about the electrical appliance and its purchase, and a communication card including a controller, an interface connector for connecting the communication card to the electrical appliance, a wireless cellular modem for transmitting data, and a card memory for storing program code, wherein when the communication card is connected to the electrical appliance via the interface connector, the program code automatically instructs the controller to collect the identifying information about the electrical appliance and its purchase, to collect owner information and to transmit at least a portion of the collected information to at least one remote recipient using the cellular modem. A method is also described and claimed.

Claims

1. A system for automatically registering an appliance, comprising:

a storage housed within an electrical appliance for storing identifying information about the electrical appliance and its purchase; and

a communication card comprising;

a controller;

an interface connector for connecting the communication card to the electrical appliance;

a wireless cellular modem for transmitting data; and

a card memory for storing program code,

wherein when said communication card is connected to the electrical appliance via said interface connector, the program code automatically instructs said controller to collect the identifying information about the electrical appliance and its purchase, to collect owner information and to transmit at least a portion of the collected information to at least one remote recipient using said cellular modem.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the identifying information about the electrical appliance and its purchase comprises a serial number, a model number, an identifier for a point of purchase from which the appliance was purchased, and a date on which the appliance was purchased.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the identifying information about the electrical appliance and its purchase comprises contact information for the at least one remote recipient.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the contact information for the at least one remote recipient is at least one call number for the at least one remote recipient.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein contact information for the at least one remote recipient is obtained from manually entered data.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one remote recipient is at least one of a seller of the electrical appliance, a manufacturer of the electrical appliance, or a service provider for the electrical appliance.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the owner information is stored in said card memory.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the owner information is retrieved from a remote server computer by said communication card.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the owner information is stored in said storage housed within the electrical appliance.

10. A method for automatically registering an appliance, comprising:

connecting a communication card to an electrical appliance, wherein identifying information about the electrical appliance and its purchase is stored within a memory in the electrical appliance;

automatically collecting (i) the identifying information about the electrical appliance and its purchase from the memory in the electrical appliance, (ii) owner information, and (iii) contact information for at least one remote recipient, by the communication card;

automatically opening a connection with the at least one remote recipient, by the communication card; and

automatically transmitting at least a portion of the collected information to the at least one remote recipient, by the communication card.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the identifying information about the electrical appliance and its purchase comprises a serial number, a model number, an identifier for a store from which the appliance was purchased, and a date on which the appliance was purchased.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the identifying information about the electrical appliance and its purchase comprises the contact information for the at least one remote recipient.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the contact information for the at least one remote recipient is at least one call number for the at least one remote recipient.

14. The method of claim 10 further comprising obtaining the contact information for the at least one remote recipient from manually entered data.

15. The method of claim 10 wherein the at least one remote recipient is at least one of a seller of the electrical appliance, a manufacturer of the electrical appliance, or a service provider for the electrical appliance.

16. The method of claim 10 further comprising retrieving the owner information from a remote server computer.

17. The method of claim 10 wherein the owner information is stored within a memory in the communication card.

18. The method of claim 10 wherein the owner information is stored within the memory in the electrical appliance.

19. A method for registering change of ownership of an appliance, comprising:

connecting a first communication card to an electrical appliance, wherein usage information about the electrical appliance is stored within a memory in the electrical appliance;

issuing a notification to the electrical appliance, via the communication card, that its ownership is being relinquished;

connecting a second communication card to the electrical appliance, wherein information about a new owner is stored within a memory in the second communication card;

detecting that the second communication card is connected to the electrical appliance and that the ownership of the electrical appliance is currently relinquished;

automatically collecting (i) the usage information about the electrical appliance, and (ii) the information about the new owner information;

automatically opening a connection with a remote recipient, by the communication card; and

automatically transmitting at least a portion of the collected information to the recipient, by the second communication card.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the electrical appliance is an automobile, and wherein the usage information includes cumulative mileage of the automobile.

21. The method of claim 19 wherein the electrical appliance is a copier machine, and wherein the usage information includes the cumulative number of copies made on the copier machine.

22. A wireless communicator, comprising:

an interface configured to enable the wireless communicator to connect to a plurality of different electronic devices, wherein each of the plurality of electronic devices has device information;

a memory storing a device registration program;

a wireless modem configured to transmit and receive data from time to time when the wireless communicator is connected to one of the plurality of different electronic devices and from time to time when the wireless communicator is not connected to any of the plurality of different electronic devices; and

a controller coupled to said interface, said memory and said wireless modem, the controller configured to receive the device information from an electronic device connected to the wireless communicator and to execute the device registration program, wherein the device registration program includes instructions that cause said wireless modem to transmit at least a portion of the device information to a recipient.

23. The wireless communicator of claim 22, wherein said memory stores personal information about a user of the wireless communicator and the device registration program includes instructions to cause said wireless modem to transmit at least a portion of the personal information to the recipient.

24. The wireless communicator of claim 22, wherein said memory stores contact information for a plurality of recipients, wherein each of the plurality of recipients is a manufacturer of electronic devices.

25. The wireless communicator of claim 22 wherein the device registration program includes instructions to store a flag in said memory, the flag indicating that device information for a particular electronic device has already been transmitted to a recipient.

26. An electronic device, comprising:

an interface configured to enable the electronic device to connect to one of a plurality of wireless communicator and to enable data to be transferred between the electronic device and a wireless communicator connected to the electronic device;

a memory storing device information; and

a controller coupled to said interface and said memory, the controller configured to transfer at least a portion the device information to a wireless communicator connected to the electronic device for transmission to a recipient.

27. The electronic device of claim 26 wherein said memory stores a registration program and said controller is further configured to initiate the registration program when a first one of the plurality of wireless communicators is connected to said interface.

28. A method for registering an appliance with a service provider, comprising:

providing an appliance, the appliance having a unique ID associated therewith, and the appliance comprising a cellular communication modem;

providing a cellular telephone, the cellular telephone having a unique phone number associated therewith and having billing information associated therewith;

sending a message from the cellular telephone to a designated phone number, the message including the unique appliance ID;

registering the appliance over a communication network; and

associating the billing information associated the cellular telephone with the appliance.

29. A method for registering an appliance with a service provider, comprising:

providing an appliance, the appliance having a unique ID associated therewith, and the appliance comprising a cellular communication modem and a Bluetooth modem;

providing a cellular telephone, the cellular telephone having a unique phone number associated therewith and having billing information associated therewith, and the cellular telephone comprising a Bluetooth modem;

moving the appliance in proximity to the cellular telephone;

initiating a Bluetooth connection from the appliance'"'"'s Bluetooth modem to the cellular telephone'"'"'s Bluetooth modem;

approving the initiated Bluetooth connection to the cellular telephone;

dialing from the cellular telephone to a designated destination;

transmitting the device ID to the designated destination; and

associating the billing information associated the cellular telephone with the appliance.

30. A method for registering an appliance with a service provider, comprising:

providing an appliance, the appliance having a unique ID associated therewith, and the appliance comprising a detachable SD module, the SD module including a pre-set SMS message containing the unique ID;

providing a cellular telephone, the cellular telephone having a unique phone number associated therewith and having billing information associated therewith;

detaching the SD module from the appliance;

inserting the SD module into the cellular telephone;

copying the SMS message from the SD module into the cellular telephone;

sending the SMS message from the cellular telephone to a designated destination; and

associating the billing information associated the cellular telephone with the appliance.

31. A method for registering electronic devices with service providers, comprising:

providing a database table of appliances and unique IDs thereof;

providing a database table of cellular telephone numbers and associated billing information;

receiving a cellular telephone number and a unique appliance ID; and

associating the billing information associated the cellular telephone with the appliance by joining the database table of appliances with the database table of cellular telephone numbers.

32. A system for automatically registering an appliance, comprising:

a storage housed within an electrical appliance for storing identifying information about the electrical appliance and its purchase; and

a communication card comprising;

a controller;

an interface connector for connecting the communication card to the electrical appliance;

a wireless cellular modem for transmitting data; and

a card memory for storing program code,

wherein when said communication card is connected to the electrical appliance via said interface connector, the program code automatically instructs said controller to collect the identifying information about the electrical appliance and its purchase, to collect owner information, and to open a TCP connection to a server computer and to transmit at least a portion of the collected information to the server computer using said cellular modem.

33. A method for automatically registering an appliance, comprising:

connecting a communication card to an electrical appliance, wherein identifying information about the electrical appliance and its purchase is stored within a memory in the electrical appliance;

automatically collecting (i) the identifying information about the electrical appliance and its purchase from the memory in the electrical appliance, and (ii) owner information, by the communication card;

automatically opening a TCP connection with a server computer, by the communication card; and

automatically transmitting at least a portion of the collected information to the server computer, by the communication card.

34. The method of claim 33 wherein said automatically transmitting comprises sending the at least a portion of the collected information within an HTTP request.

35. The method of claim 33 wherein the server computer includes a database of remote recipients corresponding to respective electrical appliance identifying information, the method further comprising automatically transmitting, by the server computer, the at least a portion of the collected information to at least one remote recipient corresponding to the identifying information collected by said automatically collecting.

36. The method of claim 33 further comprising enabling at least one remote recipient to access the at least a portion of the collected information on a web site in communication with the server computer.