Abstract:
A device for indicating prices, article numbers or similar information on the edges of the shelves in department stores or storing premises. The device comprises a number of displays which shall be mounted to the shelves, and each display is connected to a separate electronic control unit and forms together with said unit an operative unit having its own power source. This operative unit is directly or indirectly connected to external control apparatus.

Description:
[0001]    This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 08/645,632, filed May 20, 1996, now allowed, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 08/225,537, filed Apr. 11, 1994, now abandoned, which was a continuation of application Ser. No. 08/004,623, filed Jan. 14, 1993, now Patent No. 5,313,569, which was a continuation of application Ser. No. 07/631,356, filed Dec. 19, 1990, now abandoned, which was a continuation of application Ser. No. 07/273,218, filed Nov. 18, 1988, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,019,811, which was a continuation of application Ser. No. 06/882,912, filed Jun. 27, 1986, now abandoned, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference. 
     
    
     
       FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
         [0002]    The invention relates to a device for marking edges of shelves, and more particularly to a device for indicating prices, article numbers, or similar information on the edges of the shelves in department stores and storing premises.  
         BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0003]    As the commercial marking of goods to an increasing extent is made by using the so-called bar code which can be read electronically and thus facilitates the registration of the purchased goods in the cash register, the common price tag on the goods will be superfluous from a commercial point of view and thus can be dispensed with if this is permitted by the authorities concerned. Then, the marking on the edges of the shelves will be much more important, and for such marking there are used today practically without exception signs which comprise a holder with manually interchangeable figures or other characters. Price changes in the goods assortment, which may occur every day to a great extent as far as everyday commodities are concerned, include an extensive manual work for the shop staff in changing the several signs which, moreover, are disadvantageous, because it is not difficult for a person to change unauthorizedly the information on a sign, if he wishes to do so.  
           [0004]    However, according to the periodical Supermarket No.  7 - 8 / 84 , page  25 , an electronic marking for the edges of shelves has been proposed recently, which eliminates the drawbacks of the “manual” shelf edge marking. In that case a display having illuminated digital figures, is provided on the edge of the shelf and can be controlled from the shop computer such that a changed price will be shown immediately and without further manual steps by the display indicating the price of the article for which the price has been changed. The electronic shelf edge marking also permits that there is initiated in a shop a price test or selectively applied price activities during specific selected business hours. However, the electronic shelf edge marking proposed according to said periodical would require for the operation thereof an extensive wiring not least for the power supply of the displays.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0005]    Also the device of the invention has been developed for electronic shelf edge marking and comprises a display mounted to the shelf, and a control unit operatively connected to the display.  
           [0006]    In order to make possible that the displays are mounted at an arbitrary position, i.e. on the edges of shelves which are disposed along a wall, as well as on the edges of independent shelves (nacelles) without the necessity of an extensive wiring to the individual displays, and also in order to make possible that the displays are controlled, i.e. that the information disclosed by the displays is changed by selective calls from a shop computer or from a portable control device by the transmission of signals via a wireless connection between the displays and the shop computer or control device, respectively, each display having its own call code, the device of the invention has obtained the characteristics appearing from claim  1 .  
           [0007]    Each independent operative unit of the kind included into the device of the invention can easily be miniaturized by using integrated circuits as far as the control unit included therein is concerned and also can be made very economic as to the power consumption thereof such that the display can be dimensioned practically only with consideration of the desired size of the display, because the rest of the electronic equipment can be made very small. The absence of wiring to the units means a great freedom when the units are to be located, which considerably facilitates the exposure of the goods assortment. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0008]    In order to explain the invention in more detail reference is made to the accompanying drawings in which  
         [0009]    [0009]FIG. 1 is a front view of a display which can form part of the device of the invention,  
         [0010]    [0010]FIG. 2 is a simple block diagram of the invention,  
         [0011]    [0011]FIG. 3 is a block diagram over one of the independent operative units forming part of the device,  
         [0012]    [0012]FIG. 4 is a circuit diagram over an IR receiver which can form part of the independent operative unit, and  
         [0013]    [0013]FIG. 5 is a block diagram over a portable control unit, a so-called “key”, for operating the independent operative units. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS  
       [0014]    In FIG. 1 there is shown an embodiment of a display  10  which can be used in the device of the invention. It is of the type operating with liquid crystals (LCD) and it has a window  11  in which the desired information  12  is shown. This display shall form part of an independent operative unit which includes also electronic equipment for controlling the information  12 , i.e. for changing this information or replacing one piece of information by another one. In the preferred embodiment, this unit is controlled by wireless control from a control unit, and therefore it has a receiver  13  on the front side thereof. The display  10  shall be provided with suitable means for removably or permanently attaching said display on the edge of a shelf, but such means are not shown herein, because they can be constructed in a known manner and must be adapted to the shelves on which the display is to be mounted.  
         [0015]    In FIG. 2 to which reference now is made, the device of the invention is shown broadly as a generic block diagram. In this diagram, the display is shown again and due to the fact that the display has been located in a rectangle indicated by dot and dash lines  14 , within which there is also a block  15 , it has been indicated that the display and the block form together a unit which can be included entirely in the housing of the display. The block  15  represents an electronic control unit which is connected to the display for the control thereof, and this control unit is provided with the receiver  13  mentioned above. Signals are transmitted to the control circuit  15  via the receiver  13  from a circuit  16  for serial transmission via a transmitter  17 , and a control device  18  is connected to the circuit  16 , said device comprising principally a microcomputer and can be constructed as a portable unit, a so-called key, the appearance of which resembles a minicomputer or a remote control for TV sets. Alternatively, there can be connected to the circuit  16  a shop computer  19  which controls also existing cash registers. The circuit  16  with the transmitter  17  preferably is combined with the control device  18  to form a unit therewith. The circuit  16  can also be included in the shop computer  19  or it can also be connected with said computer via a cable.  
         [0016]    It is possible to exclude the transmitter  17  and the receiver  13  and to connect all units  14  with the circuit  16  via cables, but this leads to a rather complicated and cumbersome arrangement of the displays. Instead it is preferred to arrange the operative connection between the control unit  15  and the circuit  16  as a wireless connection either as a radio connection or as an IR connection, said latter connection operating with infra-red light. In order to guarantee a safe connection between the control unit  15  and the several displays and the shop computer  19  it may be necessary to connect several transmitters  17  to the circuit  16  via cables, said transmitters being located at different positions in the storing premises in order that the control units  15  of all displays can be reached via the wireless connection and no one thereof being located in a “shadow”. Several circuits  16  then can be arranged in parallel, and these circuits can either be connected in parallel to the shop computer  19  or form part of a unit together with the control device  18 . In that case several control devices can be provided for controlling the displays.  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 3 discloses in more detail how the control unit  15  with the receiver  13  is constructed. The receiver  13  which is assumed to be an IR receiver and shall be described in more detail below, is connected to an amplifier and a decoder  20  the output signal of which is supplied to a serial shift register  21 . To this register there is connected a  64  bits register  22  which is a price register, and a 64 bits register  23  which shall be termed a name register herein and serves the purpose of storing information which can be used for identifying the several displays by the article number or position number. Each of the registers  22  and  23  has a control circuit  24  and  25 , respectively, which is connected to an output circuit  26 . All registers and the output circuit  26  are connected to a microprocessor  27 . The output circuit  26  forms an exciter for the display  10 .  
         [0018]    The control unit  15  can be made on a single chip according to CMOS technique so that it will be extremely small and above all will have a very low power consumption. As a consequence thereof it can easily be mounted inside the housing of the display  10  and it can be supplied from a power source which comprises a battery of the same type as is used in electronic wrist-watches. Thus, it is the intention that each unit  14  shall be an independent operative unit provided with its own power source, which in case of wireless control requires no cable connection whatsoever with a power source or the control unit.  
         [0019]    The circuit  16  comprises a gate with a pulse modulator and thus can be included in the shop computer  19 . The circuit is used for single-way communication of data to the unit  14 , and the data to be communicated or supplied to the circuit  16  from the key  18  or from the shop computer  19 . The circuit can operate with pulse width modulation and shall transmit signals with a call code for the identification of a specific display and thus selective call thereof and signals containing information which shall be shown by the related display.  
         [0020]    It is assumed that the display shows a price, 590.-, and that no signal is supplied from the transmitter  17  to the receiver  13 . Then, the display shows a price of the article which is available on the shelf provided with the display, and this price is stored in the register  22 . The control unit  15  is controlled from the unit  18  and/or  19  via the circuit  16  and the wireless link  13 ,  17 , digital signals in the binary system being supplied from the unit  18  or  19  to the circuit  16  which converts these signals to a pulse width modulation. Via the link  13 ,  17  the pulse width modulated signal is transmitted to the control unit  15 . In this unit, the pulse width modulated signal is decoded in the amplifier  20  in order to reproduce the original digital signal which is supplied to the shift register  21  wherein the signal is stored for future use. The microprocessor  27  ranges the incoming signals such that they are supplied to the price register  22  or the name register  23  and from these registers are supplied to the output circuit  26  via the control circuit  24  and  25 , respectively. As mentioned, the actual price is stored in the price register  22 , and in the same manner the article or position number is stored in the name register  23 , said article or position number being unique for the related display and serves as the selective call of said display. The normal condition of the display is that the price is shown continuously, but if a predetermined signal is supplied from the unit  18  or  19 , it can be achieved by means of the microprocessor  27  that the article or position number stored in the register  23  instead is shown on the display  10 , and if the microprocessor comprises a computer, the article or position number can be shown only for a certain period, the display then returns to show again the programmed prices.  
         [0021]    If a new price now is to be programmed on a specific display which represents a specific article or position number, a digital signal will be supplied from the unit  18  or  19 , said signal representing article number and price. Then, the microprocessor  27  of all units  15  will effect a comparison between the article number stored in the register  23  and the article number decoded in the unit, and only in case of the related number being stored in the register  23 , the microprocessor  27  will provide continued ranging of the incoming signals, the signal which represents the new price being stored in the register  22 . From this register the signal is ranged to the display to be shown thereby. In a similar manner there can be obtained by supplying a signal from the unit  18  or  19  a change of the article or position number for a specific display by storing a specific number in the register  23 .  
         [0022]    Both the pulse width modulation and the register system of FIG. 3, controlled by the microprocessor, are previously known and therefore there would be no difficulties for the man skilled in the art to build up the unit  15  for the function described. This unit accordingly will not be described in detail here. However, the circuit required for the reception of IR signals, which according to the invention is of a specific kind so as to have a minimum sensitivity to surrounding light, will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. 4.  
         [0023]    The circuit shown in FIG. 4 includes a photodiode  28  for the reception of the transmitted IR signal and the conversion of this signal to an electric signal. The electric signal is transmitted via a condenser  29  forming a high pass filter for low frequency, to an amplifier  30  which in turn is connected via a condenser  31  to an amplifier  30 ′ for adaption of the output level to the amplifier  20  arranged as a decoder. In order to remove background noise from the transmitted signal a specific circuit is provided which comprises an amplifier  32  connected via a resistor  33  to a field effect transistor  34 , a condenser  35  being connected in parallel with said transistor.  
         [0024]    In FIG. 5, a block diagram over the control device  18  is shown. This device comprises a keyboard  36  connected to an input and output gate (interface)  37 . The keyboard is connected via the gate  37  to a microprocessor  38  having a RAM (operating memory)  39  and a ROM (program memory)  40 . The microprocessor is connected over a data and address bus  41  to an input and output gate (interface)  42  to which is connected also an amplifier  43  which supplies an LED  44  for IR radiation. Also a display  45  for showing the signals supplied by the control device can be connected to the gate  42 , and moreover this gate can be provided with a connection  46  for external input signals or for the supply of signals e.g. to a shop computer.  
         [0025]    As is clear from the description above, it is possible in the device of the invention to operate a display by selective call either from the so-called key or from the shop computer. If the operation is effected by means of the key, this is directed towards the display to be operated such that an IR connection will be established between the key and the display. Then, the procedure described above is followed in order to show the article or position number or to change said number or price.  
         [0026]    If a shop computer is connected to the device of the invention, an article register based on the shelves of the shop must first be established in the computer. Each shelf is assigned a specific position number which is then registered in the shop computer. When it is desired to change an article price, a question is put to the computer which rapidly searches for the location of the shelf and changes the price.  
         [0027]    As far as the electronic construction of the device of the invention is concerned, there would be great possibilities of making this design according to other principles than indicated herein. It is also possible to use different types of displays, but a display of the type LCD is preferred due to the low power consumption thereof. Essential according to the invention is that a large portion of the electronic system can be made as an integrated circuit on a chip and can be located in a common housing together with the display for attachment to the edge of the shelf as an independent operative unit having its own power source.