ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,254,726, issued on March 18, was assigned to Honeywell International Inc. (Charlotte, N.C.).

"Monitoring items in an area accessible through an electronic locking device" was invented by Ramesh Lingala (Miyapur, India), Ashis Kumar Sinha (Chandanagar, India) and Jeetendra Kumar Mallireddy (Serilingampally, India).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An illustrative example embodiment of a locking device includes a lock that selectively allows access to an area when the lock is unlocked. A processor is configured to control whether the lock is locked or unlocked. A transceiver is configured to communicate with a communication hub that is remote...