The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 03, 1987
Filed:
Jul. 18, 1983
John I Clark, Milford, CT (US);
Daniel F Dlugos, Huntington, CT (US);
Pitney Bowes Inc., Stamford, CT (US);
Abstract
A system for the metering of encrypted postage and similar indicia includes a device for printing such indicia and a device for reading such indicia. The printing is accomplished with a dot matrix printer and a bar-code printer driven by signals obtained by a character generator and an encryption circuit. The reading is accomplished by a bar-code reader and a dot matrix reader. Intelligence is obtained by correlating received characters against a stored array of symbols to determine the presence of a symbol, and the comparison of the separated coded data with a reference code to determine the accuracy of the printed material. Thereby, forgery and alteration is inhibited. The data and the encrypted material are imprinted by indicia utilizing both the formats of alphanumeric characters and the formats of a bar code. In both cases, a portion of a group of characters and a portion of a bar code are set aside for communicating the message while the remaining portions are utilized for encrypted material for verification of the message.