Bell & Howell Postal Systems, Inc.

Bally Manufacturing Corporation

Bowe Bell + Howell Company

Bowe Bell + Howell Postal Systems Company

Marin Software Incorporated

Bowe Bell + Howell Postage Systems Company

Tony S Chan

Niren Shah

John S O'Callaghan

Daniel Gibbons

Ann Dawkins

Jack Bonn

Raymond W Lee

Jordan K Buller

Daniel J Parenti

Bradford Flora

Phillip Pajak

Francois Lagier

Lee Bourek

Amit Shah

Andrew Bissell

Victor Salmons

Approaches for collaborative advertising bidding comprise receiving, from an ad exchange, a bid request for an advertisement space for a viewing user. The approaches further comprise retrieving logged data associated with the viewing user, the logged data corresponding to the viewing user's online exposure to web content including at least one of commercial webpages, online representations of services or products having purchase information, and advertisements. A first advertiser and a second advertiser who have entered into an advertising collaborating relationship to respond to bid requests are identified. A determination is made as to whether a portion of the retrieved logged data for the viewing user is associated with the first advertiser or with the second advertiser. Additionally, based on the determining, one of the first advertiser and the second advertiser is selected to submit a bid for the advertisement space in response to the bid request.

Automated selection of bidders for online advertisements using collaborative bidding rules

A method and apparatus for automatically acquiring and verifying, relative to pre-established rules, information affixed to relatively flat articles transported along a transport path comprises a weighing device for measuring weight of articles being processed, an image acquisition device for acquiring a representation of indicia appearing on an article, a thickness detecting device for measuring the thickness of articles being processed, a processing device for recognition of the indicia appearing on an article, and a processing device for verifying acquired data against the pre-established rules. A number of reports are generated after processing to provide the results of the processing.

Automatic system for verifying articles containing indicia thereon

A computerized method for learning a delivery point of a first mail piece by using unmatched and/or unused data from at least one other mail piece is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of: (a) capturing a text string from said other mail piece using capture means; (b) comparing said text string to a first set of preexisting data in an address database to determine a match for said other mail piece according to a first set of predetermined rules; (c) separating the matched and used data from the unmatched and unused data for said other mail piece determined by step (b); and (d)correlating said unmatched and/or unused data from said other mail piece to a second set of preexisting data relating to said first mail piece according to a second set of predetermined rules, wherein upon the presentation of a third mail piece to the capture means with the same intended delivery point as the first mail piece and having similar unmatched and/or unused data as the at least one other mail piece, the correct point of delivery for the third mail piece can be automatically determined. The invention further comprises a computerized system for learning a delivery point of a first mail piece by using unmatched data from at least one other mail piece, comprising: (a) means for capturing a data string of address information from said other mail piece; (b) a directory retrieval system database comprising a set of preexisting data relating to said other mail piece and further comprising means for separating matched data from the unmatched data; (c) a tag database comprising the unmatched data; (d) a tag archive; (e) means for correlating the unmatched data to the set of preexisting data according to a plurality of predetermined rules; (f) a rules database comprising said plurality of predetermined rules; and (g) a learning database to determine said delivery point of said first mail piece upon its presentation to the capture means after said other mail piece has been processed by the system.

Address learning system and method for using same

An apparatus and method for use in a networked postal computing environment for centralizing collected data and generating post processing reports to facilitate near real-time access of selected data by authorized users, and involving the steps of collecting data from a plurality of networked mail processing apparatus operating in a mail processing environment. The collected data is transmitted to a data collection and processing server, having a web interface application, for storage in an associated database. The data collection and processing server preferably provide secure user access via a user web browser application. A user can then request retrieval of selected data stored in the database to the data collection and processing server. The selected data is then retrieved and one or more interactive web pages with the selected data are generated and presented to the user. The collected data relates to mail job data, mailer data, and operation and performance data for mail verification apparatus.

Data collection and maintenance database method and apparatus

Apparatus for automatically acquiring and verifying, relative to pre-established rules, information affixed to relatively flat articles transported along a transport path comprises weighing component device for measuring weight of articles being processed, image acquisition device for acquiring a representation of indicia appearing on an article, processing device for recognition of the indicia appearing on an article, and processing device for verifying acquired data against the pre-established rules.

Automatic verification equipment

Apparatus for automatically acquiring and verifying, relative to pre-established rules, information affixed to relatively flat articles transported along a transport path comprises weighing means for measuring weight of articles being processed, image acquisition means for acquiring a representation of indicia appearing on an article, processing means for recognition of the indicia appearing on an article, and processing means for verifying acquired data against the pre-established rules.

A reel mapping scheme which allows one standard reel stop control software routine to control the stopping of the reels when the device is operated as a standard gaming device, a multiple stop gaming device or a virtual reel gaming device. The gaming device includes a number of rotating symbol bearing reels, each reel having n stop positions associated with each symbol on the reel. For each reel, the gaming device stores a map of the symbols on the reel in a symbol map memory and a map of the stop positions on the reel in a stop map memory where the data stored in the first location in the reel map memory represents the first stop for a symbol whose data is stored in the first location in the symbol map memory. Three mapping indexes are stored for each reel. One index stores only one value representing an address offset to the reel map memory at one location for each symbol on the reel to provide a standard gaming device. A second index stores two or more reel map address offset values for each symbol on a reel to provide a multiple stop gaming device. A third index stores, for each of a number of symbols on a reel, the same reel map address offset value at different locations in the index to provide a virtual reel gaming device.

Reel mapping scheme for a gaming device

Growing community of inventors

Northbrook, IL, United States of America

Tony S Chan