AUSTRALIA Patents Act 1990 Complete Specification Innovation Patent Vehicle Lamp Security Lock The following statement is a full description of this Invention, including the best method of performing it known to us: 1 Background For many years automotive vehicle owners have sought to improve their nighttime driving experience by installing (usually after-market) auxiliary night vision lighting systems to their vehicles. Such systems usually involve the placement (mounting) of front facing auxiliary driving lights and spotlights to the front of the vehicle. These auxiliary lighting systems are turned on mostly in addition to the standard original headlight system of the vehicle. Many auxiliary lighting systems used on "On-Road" type vehicles could also be used on "Off-road" type vehicles such as four-wheel-drive (4WD), mining vehicles and agricultural and civil engineering vehicles. Some auxiliary lighting systems are specifically designed to be operated only off-road as their brightness and/or glare would cause undue discomfort to an on coming motorist. In fact, many after market "spotlights" or "long range driving Lights" are sold for off-road only use. However, most restrictions are usually placed on the "use" of these types of auxiliary lighting systems and not necessarily their purchase or placement (mounting) to a particular vehicle, especially when used on a registered on-road vehicle. It can be found that many vehicles used in rural locations in Australia have had auxiliary driving lights or spotlights fitted to the vehicle for use at night for safety and recreational use. Some drivers believe that the use of brighter lighting from these auxiliary lighting systems enables them to see and avoid large animals on the roads, which may not have otherwise been seen in time to safely avoid a possible collision. Whatever the reason that a vehicle owner may have to fit these types of lighting systems, there seems to be an ever increasing push by owners of vehicles to have better performing lighting systems. Manufacturers of Vehicle lighting systems have strived to improve reliability and performance of their auxiliary lighting systems. Early lighting systems in this field used incandescent light bulbs and later Halogen type bulbs that gave a much brighter 2 light output. In recent years, High Intensity Metal Halide Discharge type lamps have given very bright lights. These high performance lighting systems can also be quite expensive to purchase and purchasers of these lights have looked for security for their possessions to reduce the possibility of theft. Most prior art security or anti-theft devices for Vehicle lighting systems are mainly of a mechanical nature and involve the use of special locking nuts on the light's mounting or additional hold down systems. Most of these systems could be bypassed by a determined thief and the lights stolen could be easily re-activated on another vehicle. Additionally, it has become known to the Inventors that a certain type of these mechanical security lock nuts have only 3 different types of tools for removing the light's security lock nuts. By legitimately purchasing just one of these particular type of lock nuts with its special spanner/socket, a would be thief has access to on average 1/3 of that type of light that is installed on a vehicle, and can illegally remove the nut and its light and use it elsewhere. In recent times, solid-state lighting has been used in auxiliary lighting systems. This involves the use of Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) as the light source in these lights. Modern LED lighting systems mostly use special electronic "LED driver" circuits as the most efficient way to power the LEDs. The drive circuits can be incorporated with additional microprocessor control. Use of the words "Lamp", "Vehicle Head Lamp", "Spotlight", "auxiliary driving lights", "auxiliary lights", "LED Head Lamps", "Metal Halide Head Lamps" in this Invention are, for the purposes of the Invention, referring to the same thing. That is, these lights are all, in addition to that required minimally by Australian Design Rules for Motor Vehicles, and the use of the words named is for description of the Security Locking function of the Invention. Use of the word "Lamp driver" in this Invention, refers to LED drivers as well as metal halide ballast drivers, and halogen lamp drivers, unless otherwise stated. 3 Auxiliary Lighting systems utilising LED light sources have been introduced on the market for use on Vehicles and are usually purchased at great expense to their owners. Security of the lights is often of concern and owners tend to use mechanical means to attempt a solution to deter would be theft. Despite attempts by owners of these LED lights as well as high end Halogen and metal halide lights, theft is a common occurrence. Once an LED light has been illegally removed from its intended fitting, there is little to do to re-activate the light again other than to bolt the light down and connect a power supply. Other than pure mechanical anti-theft deterrents, there are no means known on the Market, to the Inventors of securing an Auxiliary lighting system against theft, other than a mechanical means. With the introduction of micro-processor controlled LED electronic drive circuits, it is possible to add extra security to the light by way of a security device which would disable the light should it be removed from its intended fitting/electrical circuit. Though it is still possible that the light may be removed from its mounting position on a vehicle, the light would become inoperative and such a security function would deter a would be thief as the removal of the "secured" light would render it inoperable and would have little functional value for the would be thief without the complete light and security device. It can be seen therefore that an alternative and more active security system is desired, and that such a security means would be appreciated amongst owners of auxiliary lighting systems and would be a positive deterrent for would-be criminal activity in deterring theft of the Vehicle auxiliary lighting systems. The disclosed Vehicle Lamp Security Lock of the Invention is a significant improvement on prior art non-electronic Vehicle Lamp Security Locks. Electronic microprocessor controlled Security Locks for auxiliary Vehicle Lamps will be the preferred security method for Vehicle Lamp Security Locks, and do not suffer the lack of security that prior art mechanical locks have once lights have been removed (often illegally) from their original installation. 4 The Invention teaches those skilled in the art how to produce more secure Vehicle Lamp Security Locks. Benefits of the Invention The disclosed Invention is a Vehicle Lamp Security Lock that consists of an electronic security system built into an auxiliary Vehicle Lamp and its electrical circuit, and comprised of at least two main components. The first component is a microprocessor incorporated with a Lamp's driver circuit, which would usually incorporate a driver circuit providing in the case of LED Lamps a constant current power source to LED Lamp(s), and for metal halide Lamps a driver to control the Lamps ballast. The second component is a remote Identifier which would usually be remote from the Lamp and its microprocessor, so that it would be difficult to remove both of these components in the case of theft. The Identifier would often be placed near the electrical switch in a Vehicle's cabin. When the Lamp is switched on and power provided to the Lamp, the first component microprocessor confirms by an internal algorithm, that the Identifier is the correct unit to match with the microprocessor., and then the microprocessor allows normal Lamp operation. In the event that the microprocessor does not find an Identifier or the correct Identifier, then the microprocessor does not allow normal operation of the Lamp. The algorithm could be as simple as reading the Identifier's number and checking it against a number internally stored in the supervisory microprocessor, or it could apply a formula to the Identifier's number to check it conforms with the correct answer required. By placing the two main components at distal positions to each other, a thief may have to physically break into a Vehicle to search for and remove the Identifier in order to make the Lamp work when removed from its intended fixing. This would often operate a Vehicle's security system and sound an alert, something a thief would not want. Alternatively, and importantly, theft of the auxiliary Lamp only, by physically removing it from a Vehicles mounting would be of no benefit to a thief, as without the second component, the remote identifier, the Lamp is rendered inoperable. 5 In cases where a Light with the Security Lock of the Invention is to be legitimately moved to another vehicle, new authentication procedures would be performed to allow the light to function properly in its new mounting position. However without an authorised authentication procedure, the light would not operate properly if it were removed from it's original mounting position. Detailed description and preferred embodiments The disclosed Invention uses an electronic security confirmation to provide theft deterrence to Vehicle auxiliary Lighting systems. The Invention relies on at least two components to the Vehicle Lamp Security Lock. The first component is usually a microprocessor housed in the auxiliary Lamp's housing with the Lamp driver circuitry. Importantly, the microprocessor is integrated with the driver circuitry and is not removable from its position in the circuitry without rendering the Lamp inoperable; ie. The microprocessor cannot be bypassed to operate the Lamp. Upon Lamp start-up, usually by a Vehicle driver operating the Lamp's electrical "ON/DIM/OFF" switch in a Vehicle's cabin, power is provided to the Lights circuitry and the microprocessor. The microprocessor operates in a supervisory function and "looks" for the second component of the security system- the Identifier. The Identifier in one form is a Unique Identifier chip that consists of a 64-bit unique ID memory tag IC chip. Positioning of the Identifier in the electrical circuit is by a third wire remotely. That is to say, that the system uses a Vehicle's DC power system positive and negative rails for power, and a third and dedicated wire for communication to the Identifier via a 1-Way system of communication. Separation of the Identifier on a separate wire is desirable to isolate the communication between the supervisory microprocessor and the Identifier from a modern vehicle's complex electronics. It is highly desirable to place the Identifier in as difficult and far away a position as physically possible from the Lights to deter theft of both components- placement adjacent to the ON/DIM/OFF switch would be a good first position. Upon finding the Identifier and reading its unique 64-bit number, the supervisory microprocessor then analyses the unique 64-bit number by an internally stored algorithm for verification 6 purposes. If the number is a correctly verified then the supervisory microprocessor sends a signal(s) to operate and/or instruct the Lamp's driver to operate normally. If the Identifier is missing or has the incorrect 64-bit number, then the supervisory microprocessor does not allow normal operation, ie. It does not operate the Lights, or may operate the Lights in a Warning or Emergency mode(s) only. The supervisory microprocessor and the unique Identifier would be factory matched to form a pair, so that possession of a non-matched pair would prohibit function of the Lamp with the Invention's security lock. Only a factory matched pair operates correctly. Further enhancements to the Security Lock system would be to make the supervisory microprocessor's internal program not externally readable, so that a determined thief could not easily work out how to bypass the supervisory microprocessor's internal program. Additionally, limiting the supervisory microprocessors reading speed/times between attempts to say 0.2 seconds, would severely limit a brute-force number cracking attempt to find the required unique 64-bit number when the Identifier serial number is not known. By way of example of a 64-bit Identifier, 2A64 is approximately 18.4467A10, and attempting to find the unique number could take up to 18.4467A10/0.2 secs = 92.2337A10 seconds, or about 2.9247A12 years when a 0.2 second reading block is operated. In "practice", an attempt to break the security code would take on "average" % of this time, but never the less, a virtually unbreakable system. An example component for the supervisory microprocessor could be a PIC16F684 IC chip which has the capability of 12 I/O pins, PWM output, Flash memory, SRAM memory, EEPROM memory, Timers, A/D converters, etc. A PIC16F684 could run the unique Identifier interrogation of the second component Identifier as well as control the LED driver circuitry, monitor thermal loads and fault conditions. An example component for the unique Identifier is a Dallas Semi-conductor DS2401 Silicon Serial Number. The DS2401 is a device marketed in T092, TSOC, SFN, TDFN, and UCSPRR packages. The function of the DS2401 is to provide a unique factory encoded 64-bit ROM registration number. The DS2401 is a 1-Wire device and operation is simply a matter of initialising the device and sending a "read ROM" request from the supervisory microprocessor. The multi-bit serial number is then 7 read and written into RAM memory of the supervisory microprocessor, or is such that an internally stored algorithm in the supervisory microprocessor correctly verifies the serial number. If the serial number is correctly authenticated, then the supervisory microprocessor will correctly and normally activate the power-up routine for the Lamp driver power circuit(s). If there cannot be an authentication, the PIC controller could disable the power drive to the Lamp(s) and the auxiliary Vehicle Lamp assembly will not operate. Other disable modes are possible such as a Flashing/Warning mode, or a very dimmed mode. A supervisory microprocessor could continue to request data from the Identifier, if present, until it receives an authenticated serial number if present. Should no authenticated serial number be obtained, the headlamp could be controlled by the supervisory microcontroller to not operate correctly or at all. As the supervisory microcontroller is responsible for the power control to the Lamp driver, the power to drive the Lamp(s) cannot be obtained without the supervisory microcontroller enabling the Lamp driver. The DS2401 1-Wire device or other Identifier would normally be external to the Lamp, and mounted in circuit within the wiring harness confines of the vehicle. Any disconnection or cutting of the wiring harness to remove the headlamp will result in the headlamp being inoperable unless the Identifier is also removed. When the connecting data wire between the Identifier and the supervisory microcontroller is disconnected, then this disconnection by fair means or foul, would effectively render the headlamp useless to a would be thief. The DS2401 1-Wire device or one of many other similar unique Identifiers available, has a unique factory-lasered and tested 64-bit registration number that ensures no two parts are alike. The Silicon Serial Number of a DS2401 or other unique Identifiers can be easily concealed within the vehicles wiring looms and would be very difficult to discover by a criminal wishing to steal the Lamp(s). There are other combinations of supervisory microprocessor and Identifier types and combinations. For example, two PIC16F684 ICs could be used, one as an Identifier and the second as the supervisory microcontroller. An array of DIP switches could 8 be used as the Identifier, however this method lacks the power of a 64-bit unique number unless 64 DIP 2-position switches are used. Also, for security it would be advisable to "pot" the DIP switches in a non-conductive black epoxy so that the DIP switch positions cannot be read. Inherent in the Invention is that the electronic security locking of the Lamp and its Lamp driver circuit is electronically accomplished, and thus the supervisory microprocessor and the Lamp driver electronics are normally contained within the Head Lamp assembly, and the Identifier means is remote from the Head Lamp, but still electrically in-circuit with the supervisory microprocessor. It is noted that an Identifier's serial number does not have to be unique nor a very large number to provide security. A number in the range of 1 million to 10 million, and preferably unique to the matched pair of components would provide a good level of security. Additionally, the matched pair of components could utilise a "number hopping system" so as to provide a different number each time the pair are activated. The descriptions and examples given should not limit the scope of the Invention in any way. A first preferred embodiment of the Invention consists of a PIC16F684 microcontroller acting in a supervisory microprocessor role, and a DS2401 device as a 64-bit unique Identifier ROM. The PIC16F684 would be placed in the Vehicle's Head Lamp housing connected electrically and controlling the Lamp driver of the Head Lamp. Upon start-up the PIC16F684 would check one its 1/O ports for the DS2401 and interrogate it for its serial number. Upon receiving the correct serial number the PIC16F684 would proceed with normal operation. Receiving no serial number or an incorrect number would result in the PIC1 6F684 reverting to a failure type mode. A second preferred embodiment of the Invention consists of a PIC16F684 microcontroller acting in a supervisory microprocessor role, and a DS2401 device as a 64-bit unique Identifier ROM. The PIC16F684 and the Lamp driver are placed external to the Vehicle's Head Lamp housing with the Lamp driver providing power to the Lamp. By placing the supervisory microcontroller and the Lamp driver external to the Lamp housing, a second degree of removal of critical components (supervisory microcontroller and the Identifier) for security purposes can be had, and without BOTH the supervisory microcontroller and the Identifier, correct operation of the 9 Lamp is not possible. In this situation, if the Lamp is removed illegally, then it is of little use in the case of an LED Lamp, as LED's normally require a constant current controlling circuit to operate, and a Vehicle's direct DC power would normally damage an LED(s) very quickly without proper regulation. (And in the case of a metal halide Lamp being removed illegally, operation without the ballast and the supervisory microcontroller and Identifier results in no operation. In the case of a Halogen Lamp, the integrated switching mechanism to provide power to the Lamp would be blocked). As in the first preferred embodiment, upon start-up the PIC16F684 would check one its 1/O ports for the DS2401 and interrogate it for its serial number. Upon receiving the correct serial number the PIC16F684 would proceed with normal operation. Receiving no serial number or an incorrect number would result in the PIC16F684 reverting to a failure type mode. The disclosed description of the Invention reveals the advantages and methods of how to produce a reliable and secure electronic Vehicle Lamp Security Lock. The embodiments illustrated and discussed in this specification are intended only to teach those skilled in the art the best way known to the Inventors to make use of the Invention. Nothing in this specification should be considered as limiting the scope of the present Invention. All examples presented are representative and non-limiting. The above-described embodiments of the Invention may be modified or varied, without departing from the Invention, as appreciated by those skilled in the art in light of the above teachings. It is therefore to be understood that, within the scope of the claims and their equivalents, the Invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described. 10