Patent ID: 7817012

Claim:
A system for indicating a status of a target to an entity that attempts to communicate with the target, the system comprising: at least one sensing device configured to provide sensing information concerning the status of said target in response to an action of the target with respect to the at least one sensing device; and a monitoring device, configured to receive the sensing information from the at least one sensing device, and to govern communication to the entity of the status of said target, the status describing at least one of: a present ability, or a future ability of said target to communicate with the entity, wherein: the target comprises a person; the status comprises an indication of whether the person is present or absent; one of said at least one sensing device is dedicated to only provide the sensing information to the monitoring device; the person performs a presence-related action in order to cause the one of said at least one sensing device to provide the sensing information; and the one of said at least one sensing device comprises a proximity sensor configured to passively sense a physical presence of the person without an explicit performance of a presence-related action by the person, the proximity sensor comprising at least one of: an infrared detector, an optical detector, or a weight detector.