The business of building and servicing retail displays for hand-held electronics has developed into a sophisticated industry. “Big Box” and other large electronics retailers are the major industry customers. The typical display is a countertop-style display that involves a large number of hand-held electronic devices mounted to the countertop via posts or similar kinds of mounting structures.
Mr. Roger Leyden was an early inventor of countertop display assemblies that were initially used to mount film cameras in a retail location. U.S. Pat. No. 5,861,807 (“Leyden '807”) is typical and describes a mounting body that carries a camera. The mounting body is lifted from a pedestal or similar support so that the camera can be examined by a potential purchaser. The pedestal is one of many that would be mounted to a display surface.
Mr. Leyden also utilized retractors that had one or more conductor wires feeding up to the mounting body. To put this in historical perspective, Leyden obtained several patents on display designs during a period of time before digital cameras, cell phones, and PDAs emerged in the marketplace. Security against theft was the primary issue, at the time, rather than supplying operating power to the device. Film cameras had no significant operational power requirements, for example. Therefore, Leyden '807 (as an example) tended to focus on security measures—which is still important today—although power supply to individual devices has taken on greater importance in the last decade because of how hand-held technology and products have evolved.
As far as security is concerned, Leyden '807 remains a viable design from the standpoint that it describes a secondary security sensor cable corning from a mounting body that is connected to a camera. The security sensor is powered by the tether that comes up from beneath the counter. The tether provides both physical security and the electrical signal or power line necessary to drive the sensor.
Because of the large numbers of devices mounted on the modern display, tethering each one creates a cable tangling problem. Leyden may or may not have been the first to address that problem by using a cable reel as a security tether system where an alarm is triggered if the cable or secondary cable connection is severed. However, this development gave rise to the use of cable “retractors” in the industry.
As digital cameras entered the marketplace in the late '90s, along with the expanded use of cell phones and new cell phone designs, a need arose to provide operating power as well as security functionality to individual post positions on large retail displays. Other related problems developed, at the time, involving the burdens imposed on the local salesperson who needed to make power supply changes at the display when new hand-held models were swapped out with old ones, or the retailer changed its mix of brands offered for sale.
Swapping different hand-held models to and from many post positions creates a power cable management problem for the average salesperson, particularly when different hand-helds with different power fittings and voltage requirements are swapped to and from the same post position. Replacing products that have different operating voltages and power jack fittings requires ongoing changes in cabling that will be multiplied many times over according to the number of products on display. It creates a very complex situation in a retail store as inventory rotates.
As a consequence, in or about 1999-2000, a predecessor entity to Merchandising Technologies, Inc. (“MTI”) developed a “universal” mounting puck that involved using a retractor that had a single voltage line connected to the puck for power supply purposes, thus eliminating the need for making power cable changes upstream of the puck's position as product models changed. In other words, the “universal” design provided a generic post position with a retractable tether where no cabling changes were needed underneath the display countertop in order to swap products to and from the post. However, the single voltage power line to the puck still remained part of a multi-conductor retractor cable that continued to have other wires in the cable that provided parallel circuits; one for power and the other for separately feeding power to security sensors (or “security signals”) as per earlier designs like Leyden '807.
As part of the universal design, MTI also developed what is now known in the industry as the “Smart Cable™” which is a short power adaptor cable that steps down the puck voltage (received from the retractor's power line wire) to meet the specific power requirements of the hand-held. When changing out products, the salesperson simply picks the correct “Smart Cable™” to match the product. Thus, attaching the product with a unique “Smart Cable™” and reattaching secondary security sensor cables (if used) became the only thing the salesperson needed to do when swapping products with the MTI design.
In or about 1998, Telefonix, Inc. designed an adaptor cable with a “modular connector” arrangement. This design multiplied the numbers of individual power wires or conductors within the retractor cable, with each one supplying a unique voltage. The design was described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,386,906 (“Burke '906”).
The Burke '906 adaptor cables did allow swapping one hand-held with another to and from a post position and, in this respect, served the power requirements of different hand-helds at the same post position. However, Burke '906 was not marketable because it relies on mechanical “pin” connections to plug into specific line voltages offered by the retractor cable—that is, it had no easy way of adapting if new devices came onto the market that needed other operating voltages.
MTI's early design became the industry standard. However, while Burke '906 and MTI's early design provided different ways to deal with power supply issues for swapping out hand-helds on the display, they shared some similar technical problems that are associated with multi-conductor retractors. This issue related to “physical” security in that retailers want hand-helds to be tethered to the display in a way that makes it difficult to physically remove the hand-held regardless of whether or how many electrical security sensors are used. A typical multi-conductor retractor provides this tethering function. However, the tether is not as physically secure as the steel cable tethers that were used in the retail industry in earlier years, before the advent of electrical security sensors, like Leyden '807. Steel cable tethers fell out of use in the display industry because, obviously, they lack wiring and, therefore, the ability to conduct power and security signals to the mounting puck position.
Another problem with multi-conductor retractors lies in the wear and tear these retractors undergo during the repeated cycling that occurs as the consumer lifts and returns the puck to its original position on the display. Because the retractors are generally low voltage systems, the mechanical wear and tear sometimes alters the voltage transmitted through the wires or causes short circuits. While less of a problem today compared to ten years ago, at one point in time in the development of these products, mounted hand-helds were sensitive to relatively small voltage fluctuations in the power supply.
All of the above represents a variety of technical issues that have gone hand-in-hand with the evolution of the consumer hand-held market and the retailer's need to display powered-up products in an attractive way, while still maintaining theft against security.
There has been a long-felt need to completely eliminate multi-conductor retractors in the retail display industry. At the same time, however, retail displays need to continue to provide device power and security functionalities at the puck position.
The design improvements disclosed here provide a solution. These improvements are a continuation of past improvements developed by MTI commencing from about ten years ago.
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USPTO Backgrounds