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:
Oct. 15, 2002
Filed:
Dec. 28, 1999
Paul A. Levitsky, Monroe, CT (US);
Ronald P. Sansone, Weston, CT (US);
Pitney Bowes Inc., Stamford, CT (US);
Abstract
The invention is a method and system for determining a weight for use in a shipping application and for the establishment of a trainable weights database and a weight database training object. The method begins with establishing a database linked to the shipping application. The weight of a parcel to be shipped is determined by comparing a data entry at the shipping application with a set of data entries resident in the database. The comparison is performed by entering a description of the parcel to the system, and parsing the description to determine whether or not the data includes a known symbology or barcode. If it does, then the method matches the description with a locator function to locate the required weight; otherwise, the description is further parsed into match fields. If the comparison determines a weight, then the weight is returned to the shipping application for entry in an appropriate field; however, if the comparison does not return a weight, then a weight is determined by selecting an option from among a set of weight input options which includes an auto search mode. The determined weight is then input to the database in respect of a set of parameters resident in the data entry so that the determined weight can be used for subsequent transactions. Another aspect of the present invention, is a method of establishing and utilizing a weight database training object which is invoked to determine a weight to enter into the weight field of the shipping application.