Patent ID: 8482399

Claim:
A movable shipping container, comprising: a plurality of planar walls including a pair of opposed side walls, a front wall, a rear wall opposed to said front wall, a floor and a roof, said plurality of walls defining a storage area; and an arrangement for monitoring inanimate objects in said storage area of the container that are movable into and out of said storage area, said arrangement comprising: a sensor system having a plurality of sensors each arranged on or in the container, said sensor system being configured to: obtain data about at least one inanimate object in said storage area that is movable into and out of said storage area without affecting operation of the container; a processor coupled to said sensor system and that derives information about the at least one inanimate object in said storage area from the data about the at least one inanimate object obtained by said sensor system, said processor being configured to use pattern recognition to process the data about the at least one inanimate object in the container obtained by said sensor system in order to derive the information about the at least one inanimate object therefrom; and a communication system arranged on the container and coupled to said processor, said communication system being configured to link to a communications network encompassing an area of travel of the container and including Internet connectability, said communication system being further configured, when linked to the communications network, to wirelessly transmit the information about the at least one inanimate object derived by said processor to a remote facility via the Internet, whereby communications being transmitted directly from said communication system are transmitted from said communication system using Internet protocol to enable transmission of such communications using the Internet.