DETAILED DESCRIPTION In view of the foregoing and other problems of the conventional method and systems, an object of the present invention is to provide a structure and method for incorporating a smart card or the like to disable an anti-theft path (gate) for legitimate purposes.
In a first aspect of the present invention, a system (and method) for preventing theft of an object, includes an electronic article surveillance (EAS) device (e.
g.
, a 1-bit magnetic tag, as made, for example, by Sensormatic Corporation, or a 1-bit radio frequency (RF) tag, as made, for example, by Checkpoint Systems, Inc.
), operatively attached to an object, a security path for detection of the EAS device, a reader operatively coupled to the gate, and a smart card for being read by the reader, the smart card containing an identification profile of an authorized user of the object.
Such a method and system allow fast, reliable tracking of personnel carrying objects (computers) into/out of an area.
Further, a legitimate user can easily disable an interrogation device upon the presentation of suitable credentials (e.
g.
, a smart card or the like).
Additionally, such a method and system are much more convenient than having the object (e.
g.
, a computer) disabled and then having to reenable the computer upon recovery or if a mistake has occurred.
That is, with the invention, the disabling function is part of the interrogation path (e.
g.
, gate).
Thus, only the gate need be disabled and then subsequently reenabled, as opposed to the object (e.
g.
, computer) itself.
This disabling/reenabling of the gate significantly simplifies the antitheft problem.
Further, the tag on the object (computer) can be a low-cost tag (e.
g.
, a 1-bit tag or the like).
Such a low-cost tag reduces the overall cost of implementing the system.
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