Patent ID: 8181865

Claim:
A self-checkout kiosk system, comprising: a main housing having a first panel; a first RF antenna positioned adjacent the first panel to transmit a TX signal toward an RFID tag corresponding to an item and to receive a RX signal from the RFID tag; a first RFID reader positioned in the main housing and connected to the first RF antenna to detect an RFID tag using the RX signal; a remote housing having a second panel; a second RF antenna positioned adjacent to the second panel to transmit a TX signal toward the RFID tag and to receive a RX signal from the RFID tag; a second RFID reader positioned in the remote housing and connected to the second RF antenna to receive the RX signal from the RFID tag; a theft detection module connected to the first RFID reader and the second RFID reader, the theft detection module configured to: store a description of the item corresponding to the RFID tag in a database, track the amount of times the RFID tag is read by the first RFID reader or the second RFID reader within a predetermined amount of time using a theft alert counter, and determine whether a theft alert count generated by the theft alert counter exceeds a maximum amount of theft alerts, if the theft alert count is greater than or equal to the maximum amount of theft alerts then no theft alert is generated, and if the theft alert count is less than the maximum amount of theft alerts then a theft alert is generated; transmit a security signal in response to a determination that the theft alert count is less than the maximum amount of theft alerts; and an alarm connected to the theft detection module, the alarm configured to activate in response to receiving the security signal from the theft detection module.