Patent ID: 8393472

Claim:
An apparatus for processing mail, comprising: a feeder for serially feeding envelopes from a stack of envelopes containing contents to a first envelope transport; an envelope qualification section for determining whether an envelope is qualified for further processing; a buffer feeder configured to receive and stack a plurality of envelopes from the envelope qualification section, wherein the buffer feeder is operable to serially feed envelopes from the stack of envelopes in the buffer feeder to a second envelope transport; a sensor operable to detect whether the thickness of the stack of envelopes in the buffer feeder is below a threshold; a controller for controlling the operation of the feeder or the first transport in response to the whether the detected thickness of the stack of envelopes is below the threshold to increase or decrease the rate at which envelopes are delivered by the first envelope transport from the feeder to the buffer feeder; and an extractor operable to receive envelopes from the buffer feeder and extract the contents from the envelopes; wherein envelopes that are not qualified for further processing by the envelope qualification section are outsorted between the envelope section and the extractor thereby creating gaps in the flow of envelopes and wherein the controller and buffer are operable to reduce the gaps.