Hewlett-packard Development Company, L.P.

Other

Hewlett-packard Company

Salil Pradhan

Geoff M Lyon

Cyril Brignone

Chandrakant D Patel

James Thomas Edward McDonnell

Vinay K Deolalikar

Bill Serra

Peter James Macer

Alipio Caban

John Deryk Waters

Malena Rosa Mesarina

Lester Ortiz

Mehrban Jam

John Thomas Brassil

John Ludd Recker

Ratnesh Kumar Sharma

Mark Taylor Smith

Glenn Clifford Steiner

Jorge E Badillo

Vijay Machiraju

Geoffrey Martin Lyon

Ruslan Meshenberg

Antoni Drudis

Timothy Connors

Vinay Deoalikar

Cullen Edwin Bash

Alan Andrew McReynolds

Craig Peter Sayers

Joseph Ku

Yuhua Luo

Mark D Hennecke

Kan Zhang

Jeffrey Alan Morgan

Michey N Mehta

Mark Streich

Lacky Shah

Wei-Ying Ma

Christophe Gouguenheim

John Grundback

Giovanni Gualdi

Allpio Caban

Eric Caspole

Jan Gugala

Vinay Deolaliker

Aliplo Caban

Christoph Gouguenheim

Marc McMeachern

Marc A Viredaz

A method and apparatus for an RFID tag to facilitate the determination of its location while at the same time minimizing the energy drain on the tag's battery. At predetermined intervals, the tag transmits its identifier along with status information. If the status indicates that the tag is in a new location, the tag will then expend additional battery energy by participating in the determination of its location. The distance from an interrogator to the tag is determined by transmitting two signals from the interrogator that propagate at different velocities. By determining the difference in arrival times at the tag of the two signals, the distance from the interrogator to the tag can be determined.

Method and apparatus for localization of RFID tags

A path-based identifier is provided. An entity identifier is generated at an entity of a supply chain and the entity identifier is based on a reliability of the entity of the supply chain at which the entity identifier is generated. In addition, an updated path-based identifier is stored based on a predetermined function, where the entity identifier is an input to the predetermined function.

Providing a path-based identifier

In one embodiment of the present invention, a source point of a supply chain secures shipment of an object by devising an encryption key and encrypting a message using the encryption key to produce an encrypted message. A portion or portions of the encryption key and the encrypted message are included or incorporated within the object to be shipped, packaging surrounding the object, and/or labels affixed to the object or packaging, prior to shipping the object to a destination point within the supply chain. Upon receipt of the object from the supply chain, the destination point can extract the portion or portions of the encryption key and the encrypted message from the object, packaging surrounding the object, and/or labels affixed to the object or packaging, obtain the remaining portion of the encryption key directly from the source point, reassemble the encryption key, and decrypt the encrypted message to produce a computed message. The destination point can then obtain the original message from the source point and compare the original message to the decrypted message in order to determine whether or not the shipment is authentic.

Method and system for shipment authentication

Information from a package is read. An encryption key is generated from the information read from the package. A text unit is encrypted using the encryption key. The encrypted text unit is affixed to the package.

Encrypting a text unit from package information for package authentication

A computing node is connected to a sensor and an actuator. The computing node receives a module which is used to program the computing node to perform a function associated with the sensor and the actuator.

Programming a computing node connected to a sensor and an actuator

A device for limiting access to information corresponding to a context. The device has context logic configured to determine context and a trusted computing platform coupled to the context logic. The trusted computing has a computer readable medium and a filter coupled to the computer readable medium. The filter is configured to receive context from the context logic and retrieve context information from the computer readable medium associated with the context. Thus, the trusted platform limits access to the context information in the database unless context associated with the context information is received.

Limiting access to information corresponding to a context

A data structure disposed in a computer readable memory provides information corresponding to a location. The data structure includes a first data field for identifying the location and a second data field associated with the first data field containing information corresponding to the location.

Data structure disposed in a computer readable memory that provides information corresponding to a location

Aspects of the present invention describe a method of tracking an item, comprising. The items is associated with a tag and capable of responding to a query from a tag reader and tag combination. The tag reader and tag combination capable of identifying the item associated with the tag using a tag reader. In operation, a tag reader makes a request to at least one tag reader and tag combination for the identity of an item associated with a tag. The tag reader and tag combination identifies the item associated with the tag and provides the identity of the item and tag to the tag reader.

Method and system for item tracking with tags

A method and system for providing secure communications between a first and second peer device is disclosed. The invention includes allowing the first and second peer devices to verify the authenticity of each other only while each peer device is within an established zone of privacy wherein the established zone of privacy is an area close (for example, almost touching) to the peer device. Because the authenticity of the other device is verified only while each peer device is within the established zone of privacy, users can visually confirm that there are no potential interlopers within the zone. As a result, the two peer devices can discover each other in a more secure fashion The method and system include creating a zone of privacy with the first peer device, allowing the first and second peer devices to verify the authenticity of each other only while the second peer device is within the zone of privacy, and allowing encrypted data to transfer between the first and second peer device once the authenticity of each peer device has been verified.

Method and system for providing secure communications between a first and a second peer device

In one embodiment of the present invention, a source point in a supply chain generates a secret and devises a secret sharing scheme that parcels the secret into a number of secret shares. The source point retains at least one secret share, and distributes the remaining secret shares to trusted, intermediate points in the supply chain. The source point then ships a shipment comprising are least one object, and frequently including at least one level of packaging, to a destination point in the supply chain, labeling the object or objects and/or packaging enclosing the object or objects with the retained secret share. Each intermediate point incorporates the secret share obtained by the intermediate point from the source point into the object, packaging enclosing the object, or a label on the object or packaging. At the destination point, the recipient of the object can use the secret shares incorporated into the object, packaging enclosing the object, or a label on the object or packaging to reconstruct the secret initially generated by the source point, and compares the reconstructed secret to the original secret forwarded from the source point.

Shipment authentication and tracking

An embodiment of a synchronizer for a mobile device comprises memory for containing identification data and message data. The synchronizer is operative at least part of the time when the mobile device is inactive to establish communication with a base station, to provide from memory identification data enabling the base station to establish communication between the synchronizer and a server and, where message data is waiting to be transferred between the server and the mobile device, to enable transfer of message data waiting to be transferred. The synchronizer is operative when the mobile device is active to transfer message data between the mobile device and the memory of the synchronizer.

Communication with a mobile device

Methods and systems of the present invention are directed to clustering RFID-tag readers of a multi-RFID-tag-reader network in order to obtain a set of RFID-tag readers with high probability of detecting an event, but with low probability of collisions and with an acceptable cost. The cost may be determined by any of numerous cost functions of the RFID-tag readers in the set of RFID-tag readers, and may represent a cost in power, long-term reliability, and other such metrics that may be applied to an RFID-tag network.

Clustering methods for radio-frequency-identifier networks

Methods and systems of the present invention employ perturbation techniques for configuring RFID-tag-reader networks in order to achieve increased overall efficiency of a network of RFID-tag readers. According to described embodiments of the present invention, individual RFID-tag readers within a multi-RFID-tag-reader network may be removed or shut down, or RFID-tag readers may be displaced relative to one another, in order to remove interferences between RFID-tag readers and to increase the interrogation efficiency of the multi-RFID-tag-reader network. A method embodiment of the present invention schedules a multi-RFID-tag-reader network as a cycle of power-on/power-off intervals.

Method and system for scheduling multi-radio-frequency-identification-tag-reader networks to increase interrogation efficiency

A package identifier for a package having at least one sub-package is generated. A package identifier generating function is performed on at least one sub-package identifier of the at least one sub-package to generate the package identifier. In addition, the generated package identifier is stored for use in authentication.

Providing a package identifier

Methods and systems of the present invention employ perturbation techniques for configuring RFID-tag-reader networks in order to achieve increased overall efficiency of a network of RFID-tag readers. According to described embodiments of the present invention, individual RFID-tag readers within a multi-RFID-tag-reader network may be removed or shut down, or RFID-tag readers may be displaced relative to one another, in order to remove interferences between RFID-tag readers and to increase the interrogation efficiency of the multi-RFID-tag-reader network.

Method and system for perturbing multi-radio-frequency-identification-tag-reader networks to increase interrogation efficiency

Growing community of inventors

Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Salil Pradhan