Patent ID: 8004415

Claim:
A method for monitoring an article for fluid exposure, comprising: incorporating a plurality of liquid sensors into an article beneath an outer layer in a furnishing installation, wherein the article and the sensor are not visually apparent without removal of the outer layer; a processor component polling each of the plurality of liquid sensors to determine whether any of the plurality of liquid sensors are currently detecting liquid, the processor component having a state set to fluid-detected or to no-fluid-detected; if none of the polled plurality of liquid sensors are currently detecting liquid and the state is set to fluid-detected, resetting the state to no-fluid-detected and associating polling temporal data to an open fluid exposure event data entry in a memory; if at least a first of the polled plurality of liquid sensors is currently detecting liquid: re-polling the first and a second of the polled plurality of liquid sensors to determine whether each is currently detecting liquid; if either of the first and the second re-polled sensors is not currently detecting liquid, creating a failure event data entry in the memory for a one of the first and the second re-polled sensors and setting the state to no-fluid-detected, else: if the state is no-fluid-detected, setting the state to fluid-detected, creating a new fluid exposure event data entry in the memory including polling and re-polling temporal data; or if the state is fluid-detected, adding temporal data associated with the re-polling of the plurality of sensors to the open fluid exposure event data entry in the memory.