Tele-inventory system, and in-shop terminal and remote management apparatus for the system

Abstract

A tele-inventory system for inventorying various kinds of commodities in a shop by an operator from a remote management apparatus installed remotely from the shop.

1 . A remote management apparatus for use in a tele-inventory system in which various kinds of object commodities in a shop are inventoried by a human operator from the remote management apparatus, comprising: 
 image-receiver means for receiving images of the object commodities from a image-transmitter means for transmitting images of the object commodities taken by a camera of the shop;    display means for displaying the taken images of the object commodities which images have been received by the image-receiver means;    makers means for selectively labeling the taken image of an individual object commodity pointed by the human operator in the displayed taken images, with either one of a predetermined mark and a special mark other than the predetermined mark; and    counter means for counting the number of images of the object commodities which images each have been labeled with the predetermined mark by the marker means.    
   
   
       2 . A remote management apparatus according to  claim 1 , further comprising: 
 instruction-transmitter means for transmitting instructions of the human operator to the shop.    
   
   
       3 . A remote management apparatus according to  claim 1 , wherein the marked image, which is the image labeled with the predetermined special mark by the marker means, is returned to the shop together with instructions of the operator.  
   
   
       4 . A remote inventory management method, comprising: 
 receiving images of object commodities from a image-transmitter means for transmitting images of the object commodities taken by a camera of the shop;    displaying the taken images of the object commodities which images have been received by the image-receiver means;    selectively labeling the taken images of an individual object commodity pointed by a human operator in the taken images displayed by the displaying, with either one of a predetermined mark and a special mark other than the predetermined mark; and    counting the number of images of the object commodities which images each have been labeled with the predetermined mark by said selectively labeling.