Patent ID: 7817038

Claim:
A method for detecting the disassociation of an object from a set of objects that are related independently of the location of the set, comprising: receiving a definition of objects, wherein the objects are related independently of the location of the set and an object is designated as a parent object and the other objects are designated as child objects; defining the child objects to be a child set of child objects for tracking a disassociation of a child object from other child objects in the child set; defining the parent object and the child set to be a hierarchical set for tracking a disassociation of all the child objects from the parent object; upon automatically detecting when a child object of the child set disassociates from the other child objects of the child set, signaling a disassociation within the child set, the detecting occurring when a child object exceeds a pre-defined proximity from another child object of the child set; and upon automatically detecting when all the child objects of the child set disassociates from the hierarchical set, signaling a disassociation within the hierarchical set, the detecting occurring when the parent object of the hierarchical set exceeds a pre-defined proximity from the child set.