Patent Number: 
Section: claims

1. A method for testing the seal of a glove which is installed in a particular port of an isolator, comprising:providing a test disc having a seal for connecting to the port in a hermetically sealed fashion, the test disc having a pressure-measuring device, a microprocessor, a memory and a data interface for transmission of information, the test disc further including a reading device configured to determine an identity of the particular isolator port;sealing an open end of a glove between the test disc and port so as to define an internal glove volume, the glove having a first identification element;placing the glove volume under excess pressure;measuring the glove volume pressure with the pressure-measuring device of the test disc;recording and storing a glove volume pressure profile with the microprocessor and memory;reading the first identification element of the glove with the reading device of the test disc to determine a glove identity; andstoring both the identity of the glove and the identity of the particular isolator port in the memory. 2. The method of claim 1, further including measuring the glove volume pressure over a predefined time period and comparing any pressure drop with a limiting value. 3. The method of claim 1, further including correlating historical data on previous tests of the glove and estimating a residual period of use of the glove therefrom. 4. The method of claim 1, further including simultaneously receiving the pressure profiles for a plurality of gloves from a plurality of test discs, and assigning the respective pressure profiles to a corresponding glove and port. 5. The method of claim 1, further including preventing removal of the test disc from the port if a defect in the glove is detected. 6. The method of claim 1, further including recording an early pressure profile for a specific glove at a relatively early point in time and comparing the early pressure profile with a later pressure profile which is recorded for this glove at a relatively late point in time, and estimating a residual period of use of the glove from the comparison. 7. The method of claim 1, further including providing an evaluation unit comprising a memory unit and an output unit connected to a user database, and transmitting the pressure profile with the identities of a corresponding glove and port to the evaluation unit, and estimating a residual period of use of the glove therefrom. 8. The method of claim 7, wherein the transmission of the pressure profile with the identities of a corresponding glove and port to the evaluation unit are done wirelessly. 9. The method of claim 7, wherein process-related data about the use of the glove is stored in the evaluation unit and taken into account during the estimation. 10. The method of claim 1, further including providing an identification element for the port of the isolator which can be read by the reading device of the test disc.