Method and apparatus for the remote verification of the operation of electronic devices by standard transmission mediums

A method for monitoring software usage of owner-leased proprietary software residing in at least one remote computer surreptitiously of a user of said remote computer to detect violations of software usage agreements surreptitiously of a user of said remote computer at a central site means, said method comprising the steps of:

• a. imbedding unique usage agreement information that is transparent to the user in each original copy of said owner-leased proprietary software;
• b. each of said at least one remote computers monitoring the use of said software of step a. surreptitiously of a user of said remote computer;
• c. each of said at least one remote computers automatically, at various times, reporting said terms of said usage agreement imbedded in said software and the use of said software by said remote computer monitored in step b. to said central site means surreptitiously of a user of said remote computer;
• d. said central site means receiving the report of step c. from at least one remote computer;
• e. said central site means interpreting the received reports of step d. from each of said at least one remote computers to determine when each usage agreement is violated;
• and
• f. said central site means transmitting software operation modification information to each of said at least one remote computers at which an agreement violation was detected in step e. surreptitiously of a user of said remote computer to modify said owner-leased proprietary software residing in the appropriate remote computers.

A remote site performance monitoring system for inclusion in an electrical apparatus to monitor and collect performance data thereof during operation surreptitiously of a user of said electrical apparatus for transmitting said collected performance data to a central site means for comparing the received collected performance data with expected performance data for electrical apparatus of the type in which said remote site performance monitoring system has been added, said remote site system comprising:

• monitor means programmed for collecting data on at least one performance feature of said electrical apparatus of interest to the system surreptitiously of a user of said electrical apparatus;
• formatting means for creating a message bearing packet containing data collected by said monitoring means;
• and
• transmission means for initiating, at a semi-random rate, the transmission of the message packet from the formatting means to the central site means of the system surreptitiously of a user of said electrical apparatus.

A method of monitoring the performance of at least one electrical apparatus surreptitiously of a user of said electrical apparatus at a remote site that includes remote site monitoring means that collects surreptitiously of a user of said electrical apparatus and reports performance data from said electrical apparatus surreptitiously of a user of said electrical apparatus to a central site monitoring means, said method comprising the steps of:

• a. collecting data by said remote monitoring means on at least one performance feature of said electrical apparatus of interest;
• b. formatting by said remote site monitoring means of a message bearing packet containing data collected in step a., said message bearing packet including unique identification information that was assigned to said electrical apparatus prior to shipping of said apparatus to said remote site;
• c. said remote site monitoring means initiating transmission, at a semi-random rate, of said message packet of step b. to the central site monitoring means;
• d. receiving the message packet of step c. at the central site monitoring means from each remote site monitoring means;
• e. decoding the received massage packet of step d. at said central site monitoring means;
• and
• f. comparing the performance data from step e. with the expected performance data at the central site monitoring means for each of the electrical apparatus of the type in which said remote site monitoring means is installed to identify the location of at least one remote monitoring means.

A system to monitor software usage of owner-leased proprietary software residing in at least one remote computer surreptitiously of a user of said electrical apparatus to detect violations of software usage agreements surreptitiously of a user of said electrical apparatus at a central site means, said system comprising:

• each original copy of said owner-leased proprietary software including unique usage agreement information that is transparent to the user of said software;
• each of said at least one remote computer includes:
• monitoring means for monitoring the use of said software surreptitiously of a user of said electrical apparatus;
• and
• transmitting means for automatically, at various times, reporting said terms of said usage agreement and the use of said software by said remote computer detected by said monitoring means to said central site means surreptitiously of a user of said remote computer;
• and
• central site means for receiving said agreement information and said monitored usage information from at least one remote computer, said central site means including:
• transmission receiving means for receiving transmissions from at least one remote computer;
• and
• interpretation means for interpreting the received information from each of said at least one remote computers to determine when each usage agreement is violated.