Federal Express Corporation

Fedex Corporation

William G Cummings

Mark D Yerger

Barry J Atkins

Bruce Thomas Bullion, Iii

James Harold Idell

Michael J Ross

Ravishanke V Gampa

Allen C McAdams

Carlos M Barrios

Allan C McAdams

James E Segars

A freight transportation container can accept standardized pallets and is suitable for the transportation by land, sea, or air. The size and construction of the container permits the loading and removal of freight by a conventional fork lift truck, and allows placement of the container in standard-sized trucks and aircraft. Lockdown lips formed on the bottom of the container secure the container to the floors of trucks and aircraft. The freight container also is part of a system for transportation whereby the freight can be loaded, inventoried, locked, and sealed at a customer's premises, and remain under the custody of one entity throughout shipment of the freight to the consignee. An empty freight container can be delivered to a customer's premises on a truck having a cab and removable trailer, so that the container and trailer can remain there for loading, and then later be picked up by the cab and taken to holding areas, other trucks, ships, aircraft, or directly to the consignee. Transactional information regarding the freight and destination is stored in a computer, allowing a central system to track the freight and generate appropriate business and customer documentation.

Freight container, system, and method for shipping freight

A method of shipping freight directly from a customer's premises to the premises of the consignee. The method includes transporting to a customer's premises at least one freight container. The freight container includes a base, a roof, a pair of opposed side walls, and a pair of opposed end walls. One of the end walls includes an opening for the loading and removal of freight. The container and the opening are sufficiently large to permit the loading and unloading of freight to and from the container by a conventional fork lift truck. The container has a size of approximately 13 feet long, 8 feet high, and 8 feet wide. The method also includes, at the customer's premises, loading freight into the at least one freight container and securing the freight in the freight container. The method further includes transporting the at least one freight container and its loaded freight, in a secured state, from the customer's premises and to the premises of the consignee of the freight.

A method for staging and shipping articles of freight at a transfer facility by which a radio frequency tag capable of receiving and storing transactional data is placed on each of a plurality of articles of freight, the data regarding the article on which the tag placed. After determining at least the approximate weight and outer dimensions of each article of freight, transactional data representative of at least the weight, the outer dimensions, and the desired destination of the article of freight are transferred to and stored in the respective radio frequency tags. As each article of freight is transferred from one location to another within the facility, the transactional data from each radio associated frequency tag is read and stored in one or more memory devices. The articles of freight are temporarily stored in an intermediate holding area, based on the transactional data and a programmed computer interconnected with a memory device storing said transactional data, and the articles of freight are sequentially loaded, based on the transactional data and a programmed computer interconnected with a memory device storing said transactional data.

Methods for shipping freight

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Memphis, TN, United States of America

William G Cummings