In the last few years, there have been tremendous advances in the development and expansion of the Internet making it a universal, world-wide communication medium. At the same time there have been significant increase of the number of types of personal electronic devices. There has always been theft, fire, flood, and forgetfulness that lead to the loss of one's personal property. For a number of years there have been a number of attempts to track personal property so that lost or stolen property can be returned if found or recovered to its owners.
A number of different approaches have been taken but each has resulted in less than acceptable results. To consider one example, local police or fire departments have been successful in getting children to register their bicycles. In most cases this is done with a paper card kept in a box in the local station. This approach has been ineffective because often when a piece of property such as a bicycle has been stolen, it is recovered in another city or there is difficulty in finding ownership information of the recovered bicycle.
Some have tried to create registries that cover a larger geographic region. These registries typically serve as merely a posting place where lost or found pieces of property can be listed. These make personal information available publicly and therefore limit those that feel comfortable using such registries. Others have provided a service where postings are not publicly available protecting privacy but are then dependent on a person to search through the entries and make a match.
A number of service providers provide labels with a user identification number. If a labeled item is found, the number of the item can be used to locate the owner. Some of these systems use courier or mail box companies to assist in the return of the property. This approach is useless if the thief removes the label. This approach also either exposes personal information regarding the finder or the owner, or requires the web site staff to do the work of making the match and handling the return.
The National Bike Registry has been in operation since 1984 and has been successful in establishing a national registry of bicycles. This registry uses a computer database to store data about bicycles and has been very successful at returning registered bicycles to its owners. Recently a World Wide Web interface has been added to the National Bike Registry allowing users to register their bicycles and easily report lost or stolen bicycles or the Internet. National Bike Registry personnel work with law enforcement agencies to locate recovered bikes and return them to registered owners. With all its success, the database of the National Bike Registry is limited to bicycles and requires a significant human effort to achieve its goals.
There are a number of problems that are not handled by property tracking systems. Many of these approaches are limited to a single type of item such as a bicycle or a pet. Because they are limited to a certain type of item the database only tracks a certain set of attributes that are limited to that type of item such as number of gears or number of wheels. These attributes do not apply to another type of item such as a laptop computer.
Many of these approaches described above require human effort to search the records to find matches. The requirement for human effort increases the cost of the service, delays the process, and is error prone.
Additionally, many of these approaches only track a limited number of attributes such as a serial number or label number. If that critical attribute is removed or modified, the system fails. These systems also require an exact match so items that close match are ignored.
The database design of many of these systems are based solely on a Property model, where information about the owner is stored in a redundant manner. This may suffice for a small database, but when an attempt is made to store information on a national or world-wide scale, the redundant data increases the size of the database. Redundant data is also harder to maintain as information changes, such as the address or phone number of an owner of multiple pieces of property.
Because of the rigid database model used by many of these systems, it is difficult and costly to make changes to the database design. Even a small change to incorporate a new type of property typically requires:                1. a change to the database schema (organization of data elements);        2. reprogramming the database access routines;        3. redesigning the web pages or user interfaces; and,        4. inadvertent defect introduction as a result of the change.        
Many of these systems also fail to provide any type of integration with warranty management or insurance claim.
All of these problems result in found items not being returned to their owners and a loss to society as a whole through theft and/or destruction of property.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds