The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 22, 2004
Filed:
Nov. 23, 1999
Steven Dardinski, Westford, MA (US);
Keith Eldridge, North Easton, MA (US);
Robert Hall, South Easton, MA (US);
Mark Johnson, North Attleboro, MA (US);
Brian MacKay, Coppell, TX (US);
Paul Meskonis, Norwood, MA (US);
Scott Volk, North Easton, MA (US);
Invensys Systems, Inc., Foxboro, MA (US);
Abstract
The invention provides improved apparatus for configuring process, environmental, industrial and other control systems. Such apparatus employs “appearance” objects (or other data and/or programming constructs) defining the appearance of configurable system components in graphical editors or other views in which the components may be depicted. “Placeholder” objects (or other constructs) persist the location, size, color, or other aspects of appearance defined by an appearance object for a configurable component in views in which it is actually depicted. By way of example, a process control configuration apparatus according to this aspect of the invention uses “configurable” objects to define blocks, loops and other components of a process control system. Appearance objects provide (or reference) icons or representations indicating how the configurable objects are to be depicted, e.g., in a configuration editor. Placeholder objects are created for each configurable object that is placed in a configuration using that editor. The placeholder objects identify the sizes, locations, colors, etc., of the icons used in the editor to represent the configurable objects.