RFID device groups

• US 7,378,966 B2
• Filed: 01/04/2006
• Issued: 05/27/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/04/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sriram, Balasubramanian, Jain, Bhuvanesh, Agarwal, Abhishek, Gopalan, Krishnan, Venkatesh, Ramachandran, Kumar, Anush, Sundaram, Jayaram Kalyana
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, TAI T
• Application Number:
  US11/325,181
• Publication Number:
  US 20070159304A1
• Time in Patent Office: 874 Days
• Field of Search: 340/572.1, 340/572.4, 340/572.8, 340/10.1, 340/10.51, 340/825.69, 340/539.22, 709/220
• US Class Current: 340/572.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/0008 General problems related to the reading of electronic memory record carriers, independent of its reading method, e.g. power transfer
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10366 the interrogation device being adapted for miscellaneous applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/08 User group management

Abstract

The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates configuring at least one radio frequency identification (RFID) device. An RFID network can include at least one device associated with a device group, wherein the device group corresponds to a characteristic. An organizational manager can uniformly configure the at least one device based at least in part upon membership of the device group.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates configuring at least one radio frequency identification (RFID) device, comprising:

an RFID network that includes at least one device associated with a device group that corresponds to a characteristic;

an organizational manager that uniformly configures at least one device based at least in part upon membership of the device group; and

a bind component that binds a process to the device based at least in part upon the membership of the device group, wherein the process utilizes a rule-based system in association with an application related to the RFID network such that at least on of a filter and an alert is a rule-after device group.

2. The system of claim 1, the characteristic is at least one of the following:

a location;

a function;

a security;

a process device relationship, wherein the grouping is based at least in part upon which process receive events from such devices;

a make of the device;

a model of the device;

a model of the device;

a type of the device; and

a device frequency.

3. The system of claim 1, the device group is a representative collection of devices, wherein the device is one of the following:

an RFID reader;

an RFID writer;

an RFID printer;

a reader;

a writer;

an RFID transmitter;

an antenna;

a sensor;

a real-time device;

an RFID receiver;

a real-time sensor;

a device extensible to a web service; and

a real-time event generation system.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a transfer component that enables a change in device group membership for the device.

5. The system of claim 4, the transfer component enables a change in device group membership for the device group.

6. The system of claim 1, the bind component links a device group and associated devices to the process.

7. The system of claim 1, the rule is at least one of the following:

contained within a rule set that adheres to an event, a condition, and an action; and

represented utilizing an extensible markup language (XML).

8. The system of claim 7, the condition has at least one of a set of predicates and a logical connective to form a logical expression that evaluates to one of a true and a false.

9. The system of claim 1, the process is a high-level object that forms together at least one entity to create a meaningful unit of execution that relates to at least one of the following:

an outbound process;

a manufacturing process;

a shipping process;

a receiving process;

a tracking process;

a data representation process;

a data manipulation process;

a security process; and

a process utilizing one of an RFID device service, a device collection, a tag read, an event, an event queue, a tag write, a device configuration, and a number count.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a security component that provides a security privilege related to the device based at least in part upon membership to the device group.

11. The system of claim 10, the security component utilizes a plurality of distinct security levels that correlates to a plurality of device groups.

12. The system of claim 1, further comprising a presentation component that provides at least one user interface to facilitate interaction between a user and the organizational manager.

13. They system of claim 12, the at least one user interface utilizes a hierarchical tree to represent the device group and the device within the RFID network.

14. The system of claim 1, the RFID network comprises a collection of devices that form a sub-system which includes:

an RFID reader that receives an RFID signal; and

an RFID tag that transmits to at least one device.