US 11,655,051 B2
Electronic bag locking and unlocking
William J. Washington, II, North Potomac, MD (US); and Christian Jordan, Baltimore, MD (US)
Assigned to The Government of the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Washington, DC (US)
Filed by The Government of the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Washington, DC (US)
Filed on Aug. 2, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/879,427.
Application 17/879,427 is a continuation of application No. 17/479,766, filed on Sep. 20, 2021, granted, now 11,407,528.
Application 17/479,766 is a continuation of application No. 17/182,870, filed on Feb. 23, 2021, granted, now 11,161,626, issued on Nov. 2, 2021.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/051,138, filed on Jul. 13, 2020.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/981,285, filed on Feb. 25, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2022/0388683 A1, Dec. 8, 2022
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. G06Q 50/30 (2012.01); B64F 1/36 (2017.01)
CPC B64F 1/366 (2013.01) [B64F 1/368 (2013.01); G06Q 50/30 (2013.01)] 30 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A bag-securing method, comprising:
receiving, into a travel carrier system of a travel carrier, traveler information from a traveler who is booking a travel reservation via an online internet interface of a reservation system of the travel carrier;
generating, by the travel carrier, an unlock code for a securing device that is a bag lock associated with a bag of the traveler, the unlock code being based on the traveler information received from the traveler;
storing the unlock code at the travel carrier system;
receiving the bag from the traveler during a check-in process temporally separated from, and at some time after, booking the travel reservation;
checking identification of the traveler to retrieve the unlock code stored for the traveler;
programming the bag lock of the bag using the unlock code to secure the bag lock; and
generating, by the travel carrier system, a bag tag associated with the unlock code for the bag.