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:
Apr. 13, 1993
Filed:
May. 29, 1990
Dennis T Gilham, Brentwood, GB;
Alcatel Business Systems Limited, Essex, GB;
Abstract
A mail processing system includes user terminals which communicate via the telephone network with a postal authority computer. When a batch of mail is to be processed, the postage charge for the batch of mail is transmitted to the computer which checks the credit status of the user and if satisfactory returns a transaction identification signal which enables the user terminal to print postage permits on the mail items and batch data on a batch label in machine readable form. For security the permit and batch label include a random number contained in the transaction identification signal. At a postal receiving location, the permits on the mail items and the batch label are machine read and compared with data relating to the batch held in the computer. If these items of data are consistent, the mail is accepted for delivery by the postal authority.