Anti-theft weighing system

• US 5,123,494 A
• Filed: 02/04/1991
• Issued: 06/23/1992
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/1991
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Frontech North America Incorporated (Fujitsu Limited)
• Original Assignee: Howard Schneider
• Inventors: Schneider, Howard
• Primary Examiner(s): MILLER JR, GEORGE
• Application Number:
  US07/650,026
• Time in Patent Office: 505 Days
• Field of Search: 177/1, 177/50, 177/200
• US Class Current: 177/50
• CPC Class Codes: A47F 10/02 for self-service type systems, e.g. supermarkets A47F10/06 takes precedence; hand-carts B62B; baskets B65D
• CPC Class Codes: G01G 19/44 for weighing persons
• CPC Class Codes: G07G 1/0054 with control of supplementary check-parameters, e.g. weight or number of articles
• CPC Class Codes: G07G 3/003 Anti-theft control theft alarms G08B13/00
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/1472 with force or weight detection

Abstract

The present invention describes a method and apparatus for weighing customers entering and leaving a store, or a user entering and leaving a particular institution or a worker entering and leaving the workplace and ascertaining automatically that the equivalence of the said two weight values do not indicate that any goods have been fraudulently removed by the person in question and where said equivalence does not occur, initiates an alarm protocol. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention the customer is weighed upon entering the retail store and is given a bar coded printed token indicative of his/her weight. At the checkout stand, with the customer'"'"'s purchased products still resting typically in the shopping cart or on the checkout stand, the customer is weighed again and scans in the bar coded printed token previously obtained. The customer'"'"'s weight should remain significantly unchanged if no products have been fraudulently obtained. If such equivalence does not exist then an alarm protocol is automatically initiated.

Claims

1. A system providing anti-theft protection to a given area wherein said system comprises:

(a) first scale means located for use in proximity to the entrance of said area wherein said first scale means sends continous weight signals indicative of the weight of a user upon said first scale means to a first information processing means wherein said first scale means is placed in a depression in the floor so as to allow level movement on and off of said first scale means;

(b) said first information processing means, upon detecting a change in said continous weight signals from said first scale means, computing, and wherein said continuous weight signals decreasing during said computation said first information processing means sending a warning signal to a prompting means, and sending in turn a signal indicative of a bar code indicative of the said signals from the said first scale means, to a bar code printing means;

(c) said bar code printing means, upon receiving said signal indicative of a bar code from said first information processing means, printing a bar coded token for the said user indicative of the said user'"'"'s entrance weight;

(d) checkout station containing a checkout station bar code reader means and adjacently located second scale means both located at the exit of said area wherein said second scale means is placed in a depression in the floor so as to allow level movement on and off of said second scale means;

(e) said checkout station bar code reader means sending a signal indicative of the weight value indicated by said bar coded token to a checkout station information processing means;

(f) said checkout station information processing means, upon receiving said signal from said checkout station bar code reader means, placing a value indicative of said signal within a first memory register;

(g) bagging area means wherein said user can temporarily leave bags containing purchased articles while said user is on said second scale means for exit weighing operation;

(h) said second scale means sending a signal indicative of the weight of the said user upon said second scale means to said checkout station information processing means wherein said checkout station information processing means then places a value indicative of said signal within a second memory register; and

(i) comparison by said checkout station information processing means of the contents of the said first memory register with the said second memory register wherein if the difference between the values of the two said memory registers exceeds a first predetermined value, then the said checkout station information processing means sends a weight inequality signal to an operator display associated with said checkout station whereupon an operator utilizes an operator keypad associated with said checkout station to send a decision signal back to said checkout station information processing means wherein said decision signal can alternatively instruct the said checkout station information processing means to ignore the difference between said two memory registers or can instruct the said checkout station information processing means to activate an alarm circuit, and wherein if the difference between the values of the two said memory registers exceeds a second predetermined value, then said alarm circuit is activated.

2. The anti-theft system of claim 1 whereby a single scale means is located in proximity to both the entrance and the exit of the said area and is thus used as both the said first scale means and, for a given user, again at a later time as the said second scale means.

3. The anti-theft system of claim 1 whereby a single information processing means performs the functions of both the said first information processing means and the said checkout station information processing means.