Patent ID: 8102264

Claim:
An inventory compliance system comprising: a plurality of RF tags associated with a respective plurality of assets within an environment; an inventory application coupled to a network; a plurality of RFID readers provided within the environment, each having a range, wherein each of the RFID readers comprises an agent configured to periodically, in an intermittent fashion, instruct the RFID reader to acquire tag information from those RF tags that are within the range and then transmit the tag information over the network to the inventory application; wherein each of the plurality of RFID readers is configured to operate in a first mode comprising conventional operation where an RFID reader acquires tags substantially continuously or based upon user input and in a second mode where the agent is configured to operate the RFID reader when the RFID reader is not being used for another task, and wherein the RFID reader is not synchronized with the tags in the second mode prior to acquiring the tag information.