Global security system

Claim 1

A security system for protecting and locating an object, and for alerting supervising personnel responsible for said object, said security system determining the geographic position of said object using position signals transmitted by a geographic positioning system, comprising a terminal, and an object beacon; said object beacon including a geographic position determining device attached to said object including a microprocessor and a memory for storing programs to be executed by said microprocessor, first receiving means for receiving said position signals from transmitters of said geographic positioning system, a wireless communication port connected to a receiver and a transmitter for transmitting alert messages and receiving first data, said first data including confirmation data and deactivation data, a wired connection port for transferring said programs and second data from said terminal to said memory; said second data including allowed geographic position data defining at least one allowed geographical area for said object predetermined by said supervising personnel and defining all areas outside said at least one allowed geographical area as disallowed geographical areas for said object, and data identifying said object to be protected; said second data remaining unmodified when said terminal is not connected to said wired connection port; said programs including a first program for determining an actual geographic position of said object using said position signals received by said first receiving means and supplied to said microprocessor, a second program including a first subprogram for comparing said so determined actual geographic position with said allowed geographic position data and generating a first alert message if said actual position does not match said allowed position data, said second program repeating said alert message until said receiver receives said deactivation data; a first timer for periodically executing said first program, a second timer for repetitively executing said second program; said terminal for generating said programs and transferring said programs via said wired connection port of said object beacon to said memory, and for receiving said alert messages via said wireless communication port, said terminal being locally independent of said object beacon when monitoring said geographic position determining device and including means for generating and transmitting messages to said supervising personnel upon receiving an alert message from said object beacon.