Abstract:
A method in which the creation of identifier information is done by the recipient in a convenient fashion and communicated to the mailer. A recipient, such as a business or consumer who orders mail items of value, i.e., merchandise, documents, etc., from a mailer would give the mailer the recipient&#39;s electronic address and the recipient&#39;s delivery and handling preferences for the ordered merchandise. The electronic address and delivery and handling preferences of the recipient may be given to the mailer in plain language or in codified or encrypted form. This invention takes into account recipient&#39;s desires and preferences by entering information about the recipient&#39;s desires and preferences into a computerized actionable form.

Description:
This Application claims the benefit of the filing date of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/460,583 filed Apr. 4, 2003, which is owned by the assignee of the present Application. 
    
    
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention relates to mailing and logistics systems and more particularly to mailing and logistics systems that the recipient selects the manner in which the delivered mail item will be processed. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     In mail communication and logistic systems dedicated to distribution of physical items, there is frequently a problem regarding the monitoring of progress of items inducted into the system. Physical items that are deposited into distribution and delivery systems are referred to herein as “mail items”. Mail items may be letters, flats, packages, irregularly-shaped objects or any other physical items that are capable of being mailed within security and size constraints imposed by carrier systems. Such systems may be created and managed by public (Posts) or private (FedEx, DHL, UPS) entities are referred to herein as carrier distribution system or carrier systems. 
     Primary parties involved with carrier systems are mailer (sender), carrier (e.g., Post), recipient and sometimes several independent third parties that provide services to any of the primary three parties involved in mail communication system. Examples of third parties include mail contractors that provide mail creation or finishing services for mailers, quality of service monitoring parties, legal authorities called upon for dispute resolution between primary parties and other parties that perform auxiliary functions to creation, distribution and delivery of physical items. It should also be noted that in some implementations, certain functions of the carrier can be performed by other parties such as trusted suppliers or subcontractors. In this case, the carrier, for example may outsource all data processing activities associated with processing and providing track and trace information to mailers, recipients and other parties. 
     Mailers and recipients frequently require knowledge of the location of the mailed item at any given moment in time during the process of its distribution. Such locations could be any intermediate points along the distribution route or final delivery point. The information about location of mailed items can have a broad variety of uses including planning of operations, supply chain management, cash flow management etc. The system of providing such information is known by the name of “track and trace” and is employed by most carriers in the industrial world. The term “track” normally refers to the process of finding the location of a given mail item at a given moment in time when the item is believed to be under the system&#39;s control and is progressing through the system in the expected and predictable manner, while the term “trace” usually implies the process of finding the last known location of the (potentially) lost mail item. In any case, the service of “track and trace” involves three basic components and their associated processes. 
     The first process is the creation and application to the mail item of a unique and machine-readable mail item identifier. 
     The second process is the capturing of the mail item identifier information at different (normally) pre-defined points along the mail item distribution route within the carrier system including the point of delivery (either in a pre-determined receptacle that allows access to the mail item to the intended recipient (e.g., mail box or post office box) or directly into the hands of such recipient). Capturing information at different points is normally referred to as “events” in the life cycle of the mail item. Events are defined as “significant” happenings in the life cycle of the item whereby the term “significant” implies importance of the happening to any of the primary or auxiliary parties involved in the mail item creation, processing and delivery. Examples of the events significant for the carrier are the handing over of the item from the carrier facility to a transportation unit or from a carrier to another entity such as Governmental Customs Offices. Events significant to the mailer are, for example, the attempted delivery of the mail item to the recipient or the induction of the mail item into the carrier system. Events are normally codified and accompanied by additional informational elements known as “attributes”. Typical attributes of an event are its codified location and time stamp. Capturing the mail item identifier, events and its attributes is one of the important functions of the carrier. 
     The third process is providing access to events/attributes information to all interested parties, primarily to mailers and recipients. 
     The process of track and trace has evolved over the years and has been driven by private carriers desire to keep their customers informed while simultaneously upgrading the carrier&#39;s own management control system and service monitoring. As a result, all traditional track and trace systems evolved to be reasonable and economically effective systems for carriers, and cumbersome and not user-friendly systems for mailers and recipients. Specifically, in all traditional cases, the first step of creating a track and trace identifier for mail items involves the creation of the identifier information by a carrier and communication of such information to the mailer. 
     At the time the identifier information is created, it is unknown to the recipient and, thus, must be communicated to the recipient in a separate communication step in order to provide the intended recipient with the means of accessing track and trace information from the carrier. Furthermore, traditional methods of accessing track and trace information for mailers and recipients are also cumbersome and inconvenient. For example, in most of the cases, the recipient is notified by a physical post card about significant events (such as arrival of the mail item at carrier&#39;s delivery facility) or, in a more modern method, both the mailer and the recipient may have access to track and trace information through a carrier-maintained web site (typically data base of events and attributes). The latter method requires a significant amount of access management effort including password management and the like. 
     One of the problems of the prior art is that existing systems are inconvenient for the customer and economically inefficient, thus making useful services cumbersome to access and costly to use. 
     Another problem of the prior art is that existing systems preferences and access to delivery information are either unknown or ignored at the time of mail item creation. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing a method in which the creation of identifier information is done by the recipient in a convenient fashion and communicated to the mailer. A recipient such as a business or consumer who orders mail items of value, i.e., merchandise, documents, etc., from a mailer would give the mailer the recipient&#39;s electronic address and the recipient&#39;s delivery and handling preferences for the ordered merchandise. The electronic address and delivery and handling preferences of the recipient may be given to the mailer in plain language or in codified or encrypted form. This invention takes into account recipient&#39;s desires and preferences by entering information about the recipient&#39;s desires and preferences into a computerized actionable form. 
     The foregoing also simplifies the process of managing identifiers in order to avoid possible identifier collisions that would occur if the identifiers are created independently by mailers. 
     An additional advantage of this invention is that all other parties, i.e., mailer, carrier, and third parties involved in the transaction, are completely relieved of the necessity to create and manage identifiers for mail items produced according to the present invention. The recipient is the party who creates the identifier. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a system for creating, processing and delivery of mail items that embodies the present invention; 
         FIG. 2  is a graphic representation of a mail item printed by the system shown in  FIG. 1  and includes a mail item identifier and recipient&#39;s delivery preferences; and 
         FIG. 3  is a flow chart of a process for creation of a mail item, and of a recipient and sender&#39;s notification process. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
     Referring now to the drawings in detail and more particularly to  FIG. 1 , the reference character  11  represents a recipient computer system that is coupled to a public communication network, such as the Internet, telephone network, facsimile machine, etc. Computer  11  has a unique and identifiable electronic address, i.e., e-mail address, IP address. A telephone or facsimile machine that is connected to a communication network would have a unique telephone number or facsimile number. Electronic Address or CEA, and a third party required for dispute resolution has its electronic address TTPEA, etc. 
     Mailer creation system  12  includes a communications unit  13  that is coupled to computer processing unit  14 , and a printer  15  that is coupled to computer processing unit  14 . Carrier system  16  includes a communication unit  17  and a data capture or scanning unit  18 . Computer  11  is coupled to communication unit  13  and communication unit  17 , and communication unit  13  is coupled to communication unit  17 . Printer  15  will produce mail items, i.e., mail piece  50 , containing a Recipient Request Transporter (RRT)  57  (which is described in the description of  FIG. 2 ). RRT  57  will be read by scanning unit  18 . 
     The process of the present invention begins when a first entity “recipient” (such as business or a consumer) decides to order merchandise or request a document from another second entity “mailer” or “sender”. The merchandise or a document is referred to as “mail item”. It is assumed that the mail item has a value (meaning monetary, legal or time value or any combination of such values) to both the mailer and the recipient and, therefore, it is desirable at least to achieve reasonable assurances of mail item delivery to its intended recipient. The placing of an order (or a request for a document to be sent by the mailer) by the recipient can take any desirable form, for example, through the Internet (by accessing the merchant&#39;s web site), by telephone, by fax, by physical mail using pre-printed order forms, or in person by communicating required information orally. 
     It also should be noted that: (1) recipient has means to communicate his/her REA together with his/her service delivery process preferences (in a codified form or a common plain language) to both mailer and carrier; and shall refer to the information containing recipient&#39;s process preferences and his/her REA as Recipient&#39;s Request or RR; and (2) mailer has means to receive RR from the recipient and transform RR into machine-readable (and human-readable if needed) information that can be presented on the mail item. This means that mailer, for example, can convert RR to a computerized file that can be printed in a machine/human-readable form on a label that can be attached to the mail item or can be imprinted directly on the mail item. The human/machine-readable form can be a two-dimensional bar code with at least some information repeated in a human-readable form or an RFID tag or any other suitable form, for example, a symbol imprinted with nano-technology processed ink with a large information capacity. We shall refer below to the information physically presented on the mail item and containing RR as Recipient&#39;s Request Transporter or RRT. It should be noted that the situation with the mailer is symmetrical to the situation with the recipient in a sense that the mailer can also create a mailer&#39;s request MR containing its own electronic address MEA and request for various event information from both the carrier and the recipient; 
     Carrier has means to capture RRT off the mail piece at different locations and times during mail item processing and delivery and execute instruction contained in the RRT or otherwise act on the RRT information. In practice, this means, for example, that the carrier has means to scan RRT and send scanned information with or without further processing to either REA or MEA, or to TTPEA or all of them. 
     As it was mentioned, the recipient begins the process of the present invention by creating recipient&#39;s request or RR. This request can contain the following information: 
     1. Description of the merchandise or document or any other item that recipient is requesting to be shipped or mailed by the mailer. This description is sufficient to uniquely identify such merchandise, document and item for the mailer who is in possession of such item. For simplicity, we shall refer to this description as Merchandise Description or MDST. It should be expressly noted that the present invention does not impose any restriction on the type of merchandise or its description except its uniqueness, so that the mailer may find such merchandise (or document) in its warehouses or archives without any ambiguity. An example of MDST is ordering a hat from a clothing distributor such as L. L. Bean. It may contain mailer&#39;s internal code for a desired hat style (e.g., HY2376), size (e.g., 7.5), color (e.g., GRN), etc. 
     2. REA (Recipient&#39;s Electronic Address) 
     3. Recipient-assigned unique identifier for the requested merchandise that meets MDST. For example, such identifier may be LLB001 indicating to recipient and possibly its information technology system that the ordered merchandise is from L. L. Bean, and it is the first merchandise ordered from this mail order house. 
     The Recipient-Assigned Unique Identifier for the requested merchandise will be referred to as RAUI. The RAUI may contain MDST, date of order as one of its parts or some other information helpful in computerized or human processing of the data that will be received from the carrier. It is important to note here that RAUI together with REA represent globally unique identifier for the mail item. 
     4. Recipient-defined preferences for mail item processing and delivery that define how recipient would want to have mail item processed by the mailer and the carrier (or carriers if more than one carrier is going to be involved, for example, in the case of cross-border mail). Most important examples of the recipient-defined preferences for mail item processing and delivery are instructions to the carrier such as when the mail item should be delivered to recipient&#39;s address (for example after 6:00 PM), where it should be delivered (for example at the back porch) or Poste Restante (meaning that the mail item should be left at carrier&#39;s delivery office for pick up by the mailer). Other examples may include instructions to avoid sending the mail item through certain facilities (e.g., known to be more prone to theft) or instructions to charge custom fees directly from a certain specified bank account. Most importantly, the carrier notifies the recipient (about all events required by recipient) by using REA. This means that the carrier, for example, can send an automatically generated e-mail message to the recipient&#39;s computer about arrival of the mail item at carrier&#39;s delivery office nearest to the recipient&#39;s physical address, and, in the absence of any explicit delivery instructions from the recipients may advise the recipients about delivery time period according to normal schedules. 
     The type and number of preferences are limited only by practical limitations of representing such instructions physically on the mail item (if this is necessary) and the “vocabulary” of coded preferences. It should be expressly noted that it is not necessary to represent recipient-defined preferences for mail item processing and delivery on the mail item itself. The required functionality can also be achieved by putting all preferences in an electronic data base indexed by REA and RDUI and making it accessible to all required parties (e.g., mailer, carrier, TTP). However, in the preferred embodiment, the physical representation of instructions on the mail item is particularly effective, because it does not require any additional data base management. 
     We shall refer to Recipient-Defined Preferences for Mail Item Processing and Delivery as RDPfD. 
     5. (Optionally) charge account where charges for shipping and handling can be settled between mailer, recipient and carrier. We shall refer to this item as Charging Information or CI. 
       FIG. 2  is a graphic representation of mail item  50  printed by the system shown in  FIG. 1  and includes a mail item identifier and recipient&#39;s delivery preferences. Mail piece  50  has a recipient address field  51  and a sender address field  52 . A postal indicia  53  that was made by an electronic meter is affixed to mail piece  50 . Indicia  53  contains a dollar amount  54 ; the date  55  that postal indicia  53  was affixed to mail piece  50 ; and a two-dimensional bar code  56 . A Recipient Request Transporter  57  is also affixed to mail item  50 . Transporter  57  is a physical representation of the recipient&#39;s request, which will be more fully described in the description of  FIG. 3 . Transporter  57  is shown in the form of a two-dimensional bar code, also known as a data matrix code. It will be obvious to one skilled in the art that transporter  57  may take the form of alphanumeric characters or a radio frequency identification tag. 
       FIG. 3  is a flow chart of a process for creation of mail item  50 , and of a recipient and sender&#39;s notification process. The process begins in step  100  with the creation by the recipient of the recipient&#39;s request, i.e., the information file RR:
 
 RR=MDST∥REA+RAUI∥RDPfD∥CI,  
 
where | means concatenation, i.e., the tacking of two or more separately located things and placing them side by side so that they may be treated as one thing. The next step in the process is step  101  where the Recipient communicates RR to the mailer by one of the methods described above.
 
     Then the process goes to step  102  where the mailer receives RR (and converts it if necessary into a computerized file). The mailer also computes the shipping and handling charges. Now in step  103  the mailer generates RRT from received RR and applies RRT to the mail item. Optionally, the mailer may also apply its own MR together with MEA for the purpose of obtaining events communications from the carrier or the recipient. At this point, the process goes to step  104  where the mailer deposits the mail item into carrier&#39;s system according to instructions in RR. The mailer also settles shipping and handling charges with the recipient using CI. Then in step  105  (optionally), the mailer notifies the recipient about the deposit event, its time and place using REA. 
     Next in step  106 , the carrier receives the mail item from the mailer and captures RR from the mail item. Then in step  107 , the carrier processes the mail item and follows recipient&#39;s instructions from RDPfD. Now in step  108 , the carrier notifies the recipient about delivery schedule using REA and delivers the mail item to the recipient according to RDPfD. The notification message contains RAUI. Next in step  109 , (optionally), the carrier may notify the mailer about all significant mailer events using MEA that can be represented on the mail item in a machine-readable format. Next in step  110 , the recipient receives the mail item, captures MR from the mail item and communicates to the mailer information required by the mailer by using MEA. Then in step  111 , the recipient creates a record of delivery and charges in its own IT system using information received from the mailer and the carrier. 
     It should be noted that all described services and improvements can be implemented with almost infinite variety of nuances that are entirely within the spirit and in step  111 , the recipient creates a record of delivery and charges in its own IT system using information received from the mailer and the carrier. 
     It should be noted that all described services and improvements can be implemented with almost infinite variety of nuances that are entirely within the spirit and the scope of the present invention. New carrier services possible with the system and method of the present invention can be charged to either recipient or mailer or both. Significantly, the system of present invention allows for automated accounting for the charges both within and outside (by carrier) mail item generation system as well within recipient&#39;s information technology system. Independent accounting by mailer&#39;s and recipient&#39;s system can be used for reconciliation and dispute resolution. 
     It should also be noted that the method of present invention avoids using physical cards notifying recipients about unsuccessful delivery attempts that are common in many contemporary carrier systems. This is done by executing recipient&#39;s instructions RDPfD, for example, leaving mail item either in recipient&#39;s controlled receptacle or other specified by the recipient place. Thus, the method of the present invention delivers significant convenience and cost reduction to all parties involved in mail communication system. 
     The above specification describes a new and improved mailing and logistics method that enables a recipient to select the manner in which the recipient ordered item will be delivered and processed. It is realized that the above description