United States Postal Service

Dan Lord

Wayne Alan Wilkerson

Roy Roger Gordon

John F Gullo

Roy A Gordon

Wayne E Wilkerson

Systems and methods of insuring payment of a proper amount of postage, comprise receiving payment for an amount of postage, affixing a postage indicia to a piece of mail, wherein the postage indicia includes the postage amount in a format readable only by machine, and adjusting the postage amount at a time subsequent to receipt of payment.

PC postage&#x2122; service indicia design for shipping label

Presented is a system and method of applying postage indicia to a mailpiece utilizing electromagnetic storage technology for the indicia. This method obviates the necessity of visual bar coded indicia, and greatly increases the amount of information which may be included in the postage indicia. This method also significantly reduces the physical space required on the face of a mailpiece to contain the postage indicia information, thus allowing the increased use of advertising and personal information and graphics on the mailpiece. The electromagnetic storage media may be in the form of a self-adhesive sticker or label, or may be integrated within the mailpiece or mailing label. Such integration may be accomplished through the use of embedded magnetic storage media, embedded ferromagnetic fibers, or the inclusion of ferromagnetic powder embedded in the mailpiece itself. Also provided is an apparatus for applying magnetically recordable media on a mailpiece. Such application may be in the form of a spray liquid, magnetic ink, rolled on impression, etc.

Electromagnetic postal indicia and method of applying same

Presented is a method for authenticating mailpieces utilizing cryptographically secured or plain text indicia printed on the mailpiece as evidence of postage payment without the necessity of including recipient address information in the indicia. This reduces the physical size of the required indicia, allowing additional real estate on the face of a mailpiece to be utilized for advertising verbiage, graphics, personal messages, illustrations, etc. Counterfeiting of the indicia is deterred by maintaining a master log database of the printed indicia. The information stored in the master log database preferably associates a transaction or serial number of the printed indicia with recipient address information. Counterfeit indicia are identified through a comparison of the stored information in the master log database with information scanned from the mailpiece itself Counterfeits may also be detected by recognizing the multiple occurrences of identical indicia.

Method for authenticating mailpieces

Methods and apparatuses are disclosed for conducting secure transactions via postal authority cryptographic transformations. In particular, value is issued in the form of a value message including a cryptographic transformation enabling a recipient to determine the authenticity of the value message. The recipient applies additional cryptographically transformed information to endorse the value message. The postal authority, receives the endorsed value message, cryptographically transforms the value message, and registers the transfer of value from the payor to the payee. Similarly, the cryptographic transformations can be used to protect the identity of a mail order customer while ensuring the authenticity of a purchase order and payment by a customer to a mail order merchant. In yet another application, the cryptographic transformations facilitate payment of bills via submission of &ldquo;endorsed&rdquo; postcards to the postal authority.

Growing community of inventors

Upper Marlboro, MD, United States of America

Dan Lord