Patent ID: 7356495

Claim:
A system to monitor item placement and item movement on surfaces, the system comprising: an identification system embedded in one or more surfaces and operable to generate data related to items placed on the surfaces by periodically scanning the surfaces, the data including item type, item location on each surface, and number of items placed on each surface, the identification system comprising an RF-ID system configured to: receive a first electronic indication of a physical size of items to be placed on a first portion of a surface of a shelf in which is embedded a first group of inductor coils, in response to the first electronic indication and conditioned on the first electronic indication representing that the physical size of the items is relatively large, set a strength of a magnetic field generated by the first group of inductor coils during scanning to a first magnetic field level for detecting RF-ID tags of items placed on the first surface portion of the shelf, and in response to the first electronic indication and conditioned on the first electronic indication representing that the physical size of the items is relatively small, set the strength of the magnetic field generated by the first group of inductor coils during scanning to a second magnetic field level for detecting RF-ID tags of items placed on the first surface portion of the shelf, the second magnetic field level being less than the first magnetic field level; and a computer configured to receive and process the data to monitor item placement and item movement on the surfaces.