Patent Document

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     Reference is made to commonly assigned co-pending patent application Ser. No. 09/083,605 filed herewith entitled “A System For Metering Permit Mail That Has An Encrypted Message Affixed To A Mail Piece” in the name of Ronald Sansone. 
    
    
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     The invention relates generally to the field of mailing systems and more particularly to automated mailing systems. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     Governments have created postal services for collecting, sorting and distributing the mail. The postal service typically charges mailers for delivering the mail. Mailers may pay the post office for its service by purchasing a stamp, i.e., a printed adhesive label, issued by the post office at specified prices, that is affixed to all letters, parcels or other mail matter to show prepayment of postage. The placing of one or more stamps on a mail piece is a labor intensive endeavor. Thus, stamps typically are used by individuals, small or home offices and small businesses. 
     Another means of payment accepted by the post office is mail that is metered by a postage meter. A postage meter is a mechanical or electromechanical device that: maintains, through mechanical or “electronic registers” or “postal security devices,” an account of all postage printed, and the remaining balance of prepaid postage; and prints postage postmarks (indicia) or provides postage postmarks (indicia) information to a printer, that are accepted by the postal service as evidence of the prepayment of postage. A postage meter is able to affix two to eight postal indicia to two to eight mail pieces in one second. Thus, postage meters may be used by individuals small or home offices, small businesses and large business. 
     Other means of payment accepted by the post office is payment for manifest mail and payment for permit mail. In a typical manifest mailing system, a mailer produces mail in accordance with a mail manifest list and determines the quantity of mail and weight thereof. Then the mailer prepares the appropriate postal forms and delivers the mail and forms to the post office. Thereupon, the post office checks the manifest list, the appropriate forms and checks the quantity and weight of the mail. The post office also requires permit imprints to be printed on the mail piece. The mailer prepares postal forms and brings the mail and postal forms to the post office. The post office checks the forms, checks the mail pieces and confirms that the completed forms coincide with the checked mail pieces. Then the postal clerk debits the value of the postage placed on the mail pieces from the mailer&#39;s postal account. Groups of individuals and businesses that produce very large quantities of mail use manifest and permit mail. 
     A disadvantage of the current manifest and permit mailing systems is that the systems are very labor intensive. The intensive labor component is the completion of the forms and submission of the mail and forms by the mailer to the post office and the review and acceptance of the forms and associated payment process and mail by the post office. Thus, many people are assisted by machines used to produce permit mail. However, the mailer and the post office use manual acceptance procedures to check the mail and forms and receive appropriate payment. 
     Another disadvantage of the prior art is that permit mail is only able to enter the post office during certain postal working hours. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by utilizing a system that reduces the amount of labor required to produce permit mail. The foregoing is advantageous to the mailer because it reduces the amount of time the mailer spends in the preparation of postal forms and the performance of postal procedures. The variable data indicia printer is able to run at a more rapid rate than normal indicia printers because the amount of information to be reprinted is much less. This is important because it saves the mailer labor and time and it enables the mail to reach the post office sooner. The foregoing is advantageous to the post office by reducing the acceptance processing time. This reduces the post office&#39;s labor and enables the mail to enter the delivery system sooner. 
     The small mailer&#39;s mail would enter the facer canceller and be automatically processed. The high volume mailer&#39;s mail would be accelerated through acceptance because it would follow metered acceptance procedures. 
     This system also provides means for the mailer to add additional information fields to convey postal instructions to the postal service. This invention accomplishes the forgoing by preprinting the non-variable portion of an indicia. Some pre-printed portions may be printed with a fluorescent and phosphorescent ink, while other pre-printed portions may be printed using standard colored or black inks. Some variable printed portions may be printed with a fluorescent and phosphorescent ink, while other variable portions may be printed using standard colored or black inks. 
     An advantage of this invention is that it provides more accurate reporting and checking of the number of permit mail pieces. Thus, the mailer pays for the number of mail permit pieces actually mailed and the post office receives the correct revenue for the number of permit mail pieces that it processes. 
     Another advantage of this invention is that it provides additional security for permit mail. The foregoing is accomplished by placing variable information within the permit indicia or in the vicinity of the permit indicia. The variable information may be printed with a fluorescent and phosphorescent ink to further increase the security of the permit indicia. The variable information may also be printed with a black or colored ink. 
     A further advantage of this invention is that it also allows permit mail to be placed in letter boxes or delivered to the postal clerk in the lobby of the post office. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 is a drawing of a conventional prior art postal meter indicia containing normal accounting and security features, printed by conventional printing or bit map generated printing; 
     FIG. 2 is a drawing of a conventional prior art permit indicia containing normal features, either pre-printed by conventional means or by bitmap generated printing; 
     FIG. 3 is a drawing of a drawing of a pre-printed metered permit postal indicia; 
     FIG. 4 is a drawing showing the pre-printed postal indicia of FIG. 3 containing variable information specific to the piece of mail that the indicia has been affixed to; 
     FIG. 5 is a block drawing of a permit mail metering system; and 
     FIG. 6 is a drawing of a flow chart of the program contained in meter permit controller  51  of FIG.  5 . 
    
    
     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 postal indicia that contains normal security features (meter number) printed by conventional printing or bitmap generated printing. The postal indicia  11  contains a dollar amount  13 , the date  14  that the postal indicia was affixed to mail piece  12 , the place the mail piece originated from  15 , and the postal meter serial number  16  (for authentication). 
     FIG. 2 is a drawing of a conventional prior art permit indicia containing normal features, either pre-printed by conventional means or by bitmap generated printing. The permit indicia  17  contains the class of mail  18 , the name of the country  19 , the city and state  20  of the post office that issued the permit, the zip code of the post office that issued the permit  21 , and the permit Number  22 . 
     FIG. 3 is a drawing of a pre-printed metered permit postal indicia  25  on a mail piece  30 . Indicia  25  contains the name of the country  26  to whom the postage is going to be paid, the city and state  27  of the post office that issued the permit, the zip code  28  of the post office that issued the permit, the permit number  29 , an eagle  31 , the postal meter serial number  32  and a block  33 . 
     Indicia  25  may be pre-printed by conventional means or by bitmap generated printing, at a location remote from the mailer, i.e., at a printing subcontractor or at the mailer&#39;s premises, etc. Indicia  25  may be printed with a dual luminescent ink, i.e., an ink that is fluorescent and phosphorescent when radiated with ultraviolet light. An ink that is both fluorescent and phosphorescent when radiated with ultraviolet light is disclosed in the Sarada et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5, 569, 317, entitled “Fluorescent And Phosphorescent Tagged Ink For Indicia”, herein incorporated by reference. It will be obvious to one skilled in the art that pre-printed indicia  25  may be printed with a normal black ink, red ink or any ink having a desired color. Indicia  25  may also be printed with a fluorescent ink or a phosphorescent ink. 
     Typically, luminescence will become visible to the naked eye and sensors when stimulated or excited by suitable radiation. Fluorescent inks and phosphorescent inks are types of luminescent inks. The emission of light from a fluorescent ink is caused by the absorption of energy (light or electromagnetic radiation) into the ink&#39;s molecules, which causes an excited state to emit or be fluorescent, and ceases abruptly when the energy source is removed. The emission of light from a phosphorescent ink will persist for a time interval after the ink source has been removed. A modulated ultra violet light source and suitable sensors can sense the pulses of fluorescent and phosphorescent ink combined on the mail piece. 
     The United States Postal Service and other Postal Services are currently selling stamps that have been printed with phosphorescent inks. They also require and accept postal indicia that have been printed by a postage meter that uses fluorescent inks. Current fluorescent inks that are used in postage meters approved by the United States Postal Service contain a fluorescent ink that is excited by a 254 nm ultra violet light source that emits a fluorescent light in the orange to red region of the visible spectrum between 580 to 650 nm. 
     Mail sorting equipment like the Advanced Facer Canceling System, manufactured by Siemens (Electrocom), are being used at Postal Incoming Mail Processing Stations to detect, sort and then cancel the phosphorescent stamps that have been affixed to mail pieces. These systems also check whether or not the postal indicia affixed to the mail pieces were affixed by an authorized meter, i.e., whether or not the indicia was made with a fluorescent ink. 
     The United States Postal Service Advanced Facer Canceller System (AFCS) faces (arranges mail so all addresses and indicia are facing the same way), cancels the stamp-bearing mail and then sorts letter mail into three mail streams: pre-bar coded letters, OCR readable(typed/machine imprinted) letters, and hand-written or script letters. 
     A dual luminescent ink is used so that the facer canceller will receive enough signal to trigger its sortation capabilities. The facer canceller may be set to recognize a mail piece having a dual luminescent ink as a new form of mail, that exhibits the phosphorescence of a stamp and the fluorescence of a postal indicia. The facer canceller may let the mail piece enter the mail system if the postage has been paid. If prior art permit mail entered the mail stream at this juncture, the mail piece would be rejected because prior art permit mail had to enter the post office and be subjected to the post office acceptance procedures. 
     A facer canceller will cancel a phosphorescent stamp, will not cancel a fluorescent postal indicia and will remove other mail pieces that do not have FIMs. A FIM is a specified special bar code used by the post office. 
     FIG. 4 is a drawing showing pre-printed postal indicia  25  of FIG. 3 containing variable information specific to the piece of mail that the indicia has been affixed to printed in block  33 . Block  33  contains the date  34 , the amount of postage  35 , the class of postage  36  and an indication that the postage has been paid  37 . It will be obvious to one skilled in the art that the information printed in block  33  may be printed in another area of indicia  25  or in an area in the vicinity of indicia  25 . 
     In the event indicia  25  was preprinted with a fluorescent ink, then the date  34 , the amount of postage  35 , the class of postage  36 , an indication that the postage has been paid  37  and the postal meter serial number  32  would be printed with a phosphorescent ink. In the event indicia  25  was preprinted with a phosphorescent ink, then the date  34 , the amount of postage  35 , the class of postage  36 , an indication that the postage has been paid  37  and the postal meter serial number  32  would be printed with a fluorescent ink. In this example, the dual luminescence on the mail piece is performed in two steps. 
     The variable information printed in block  33  or in the vicinity of indicia  25  may be printed with a dual luminescent ink or with a normal black ink, red ink or any ink having a desired color. Thus, either the variable information  34 ,  35 ,  36  and  37  or the preprinted information in indicia  25  will be printed with a dual luminescent ink. 
     FIG. 5 is a block drawing of permit mail metering system  40 . Meter system  40  includes: a digital postage meter  59 ; a meter permit controller  51  that is coupled to meter I/O  42 ; a non-volatile memory  52  that is coupled to controller  51 ; a non-volatile memory  53  that is coupled to controller  51 ; a permit mail indicia scanner  54 ; a permit identification reader  55  that is coupled to scanner  54  and controller  51 ; a user keyboard and display  56  that is coupled to controller  51 ; a forms printer  58  that is coupled to I/O  42  and a data center  57 , a mail piece presence sensor  45  that is coupled to controller  51 , and a mail piece transport  44 . Digital postage meter  59  includes: a meter processor  41 ; a meter I/O  42 ; an indicia print head  43  that is coupled to processor  41 ; a mail piece transport  44 ; a meter trip sensor  61  that is coupled to processor  41  and a mail piece transport  63 . Meter  59  also includes some support electronics (not shown) which are well-known to one skilled in the art. Postage meter  59  may be the B 700  Post Perfect postage meter manufactured by Pitney Bowes Inc. of Stamford Connecticut. Processor  41 , I/O  42 , controller  51 , memories  52  and  53 , and reader  55  are contained in a secure housing  60 . Secure housing  60  may be constructed in accordance with United States Federal Information Processing Standard 140-1, herein incorporated by reference. 
     Funds may be added to meter  59  by having meter  59  reset by data center  57 . An example of a postage meter being reset by a data center is set forth in Eckert&#39;s U.S. Pat. No. 3,596,247 entitled “Automatic Register Setting Apparatus”, dated Jul. 27,1971, herein incorporated by reference. 
     When controller  51  receives instructions to print a report, the report will be printed by forms printer  58 . Printer  58  will print a report containing: the date and time that indicia or blocks of indicia were affixed to mail pieces  30 ; the number of mail pieces  30  that an indicia has been affixed to; the total value of the affixed indicia; and internal billing identification, etc. 
     The aforementioned report may include other information desired by the post office or mailer. 
     When mail piece presence sensor  45  senses the presence of mail piece  30  in transport  44 , I/O  42  sends a signal to controller  51 . When meter trip sensor  61  senses the presence of mail piece  30 , indicia print head  43  will be enabled to print. Meter system  40  may be run by an operator to process a small quantity of mail, i.e., one mail piece. The operator enters relevant information in response to questions displayed by controller  51  on display  56 , via the display keyboard. When instructed to insert a mail piece by controller  51 , the operator places a mail piece  30  on mail piece transport  44 . At this point, controller  51  controls the operation of permit mail metering system  40 . Controller  51  controls the operation of permit mail metering system  40 , which will be more fully described in the description of FIG.  6 . 
     FIG. 6 is a drawing of a flow chart of the program contained in meter permit controller  51  of FIG.  5 . The program begins when the operator activates permit mail metering system  40  by entering information into keyboard and display  56  via the display keyboard. Then the program goes to decision block  400  to determine whether or not the task start request has been received. If the task start request has not been received, then the program goes back to the input of block  400 . If the task start request has been received, then the program goes to block  401  to set the permit registers to “0”. Now the program goes to block  402  to obtain the meter serial number and register data. Then the program goes to block  403  to store the meter register data in non-volatile memory  53 . At this point program proceeds to block  404  to obtain the current meter time and date. Then the program goes to block  405  to store the meter time and date in non-volatile memory  53 . Now the program goes to block  406  to request via meter I/O  42  for meter  59  to be set so that it will not print a standard meter postal indicia. In block  407 , the program transfers the permit meter indicia graphics to processor  41  via I/O  42 . 
     At this point, the program goes to decision block  408 . Decision block  408  determines whether or not meter  59  is ready. If block  408  determines that meter  59  is not ready, the program goes back to the input of block  408 . If block  408  determines that meter  59  is ready, then the program proceeds to decision block  409 . Decision block  409  determines whether or not mail piece  30  was sensed by mail piece presence sensor  45 . If block  409  determines that mail piece  30  was not sensed by sensor  45 , the program proceeds to decision block  410 . Decision Block  410  determines whether or not N minutes has elapsed. If N minutes has not elapsed, the program proceeds back to the input of decision block  409 . If block  410  determines that N minutes has elapsed, the program goes to block  415  and then to block  500  entitled user display query. Block  500  displays one or more questions on display  56 . The operator reads the questions on display  56 . If decision blocks  409  determines that mail piece  30  was sensed by sensor  45 , the program proceeds to the input of decision block  420 . 
     Block  420  determines whether or not the permit number was obtained from permit reader  55 . If the permit number was not obtained from reader  55 , the program goes back to the input of block  420 . If block  420  determines that the permit number was obtained from reader  55 , the program goes to block  421  to look up the permit identification number in memory  52 . Now the program goes to decision block  422 . Decision block  422  determines whether or not the permit identification number was found in the permit list contained in memory  52 . If block  422  determines that the number was not in the list, the program goes to block  423  and then to decision block  510 . If block  422  determines that the number was in the list, the program goes to block  424 . 
     Decision block  424  determines whether or not the mail piece weight was obtained. If the mail piece weight was not obtained, then the program goes back to the input of decision block  424 . If the mail piece weight was obtained, the program goes to block  425  to compute the postage value from the rate table in memory  52 . Now the program goes to block  430  send “set” meter values, i.e., obtain the correct postal values from the rate tables in memory  52 . Then the program goes to decision block  431 . Decision block  431  determines whether or not meter  59  has cycled. If meter  59  has not printed an indicia, the program goes back to the input of block  431 . If meter  59  has printed an indicia, the program goes to block  435  to obtain the meter register values from memory  52 . Then the program goes to block  440 . Block  440  indexes the counters and registers in memory  52 . Now the program proceeds to the input of block  408 . 
     Decision block  510  determines whether or not the operator has removed an invalid mail piece  30  from meter  59 . If block  510  determines that the operator removed an invalid mail piece  30 , the program goes to decision block  520 . Decision block  520  determines whether or not meter  59  has any more mail pieces  30  to process. If block  520  determines there are more mail pieces  30  to process, the program goes back to the input of decision block  408 . If block  520  determines there are no more mail pieces  30  to process, the program goes to the input of decision block  530 . Block  530  determines whether or not a report was requested to be printed. If the operator wants a report, the operator enters the relevant information via keyboard and display  56 . If block  530  determines that a report was requested, the program goes to block  540 . Block  540  composes and causes printer  58  to print a postal transaction report. The postal transactional report may contain the information contained in memories  52  and  53 . 
     After the completion of the printing of the postal transaction report, the program proceeds to the input of decision block  550 . If decision block  550  determined that a printed report was not required, the program would also proceed to the input of block  550 . Block  550  determines whether or not to reset the meter function. If Block  550  determines to reset the meter function, the program goes to block  555 . Block  555  requests meter I/O  42  to perform a standard meter indicia reset. Then the program goes to the input of decision block  560 . If block  550  determines not to reset the meter function, the program will also go to the input of decision block  560 . Block  560  determines whether or not another run was requested. If another run was requested, the program goes to the input of block  401  to set the permit registers to 0. If another run was not requested, the program goes to block  570  and ends. 
     The above specification describes a new and improved permit mailing system. It is realized that the above description may indicate to those skilled in the art additional ways in which the principles of this invention may be used without departing from the spirit. It is, therefore, intended that this invention be limited only by the scope of the appended claims.

Technology Category: 3