ReadyTrace and Baby Trend Announce New Recall System

Dallas, TX – May 04, 2004. Here at the Juvenile Product Manufactures Association’s (JMPA) annual conference, Baby Trend, Inc. and ReadyTrace, Inc. today announce the use of a revolutionary recall system for juvenile products.   ReadyTrace is developing a new recall system where a small radio receiver is integrated directly into a baby product.  When a manufacturer needs to notify a consumer about a product recall or a product upgrade, ReadyTrace issues a notification signal that covers the continental United States.  The receiver in the product then activates a small flashing light to warn a product user that the product needs service or is the subject of a recall.

Baby Trend, located in Ontario, CA, has been working with ReadyTrace for several months to define the types of products that are good candidates for the recall chip, which is known as a Product Notice Receiver (PNR).  At this time, Baby Trend plans to use the ReadyTrace recall component in automotive child restraints (e.g. car seats and boosters) and play yards.  Baby Trend car seats and play yards, which are available at Toys-R-Us and Babies-R-Us, are expected to reach product shelves in about 18 months. Baby Trend’s General Manager Chip Whalen and ReadyTrace engineers are also investigating viable use of the PNR based recall system in other juvenile products such as child-carrier backpacks, high chairs, jogging strollers, rockers, strollers, swings, travel systems and walkers.   

Jack J’maev, ReadyTrace’s CEO, together with Richard Karn, ReadyTrace’s Executive VP of Societal Awareness, are introducing the new recall system to juvenile product manufactures at the JPMA conference.  The new recall system has the possibility of allowing a manufacturer to contact more than 95% of current product users.  When a product is ReadyTrace equipped, consumers do not need to register their names with the product’s manufacturer.  In fact, the manufacturer does not need to know who the user is or where the product is located.  A pervasive radio signal is used to send the signal directly to the receiver integrated in the juvenile product.  The PNR device is only a receiver and is not able to transmit information back to the ReadyTrace system.  As a result, individual products can not be tracked and there are absolutely no privacy concerns with using ReadyTrace “product centric” recall.  For more information about the new recall system, please visit the company’s web site at www.ReadyTrace.com.