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:
Nov. 30, 2004
Filed:
Jun. 28, 2002
David J. Eaton, Newtown, CT (US);
John E. Massucci, Bronx, NY (US);
John P. Miller, Shelton, CT (US);
Pitney Bowes Inc., Stamford, CT (US);
Abstract
A weighing system and a postage metering system including such a weighing system. The weighing system includes a transport assembly having a transport for receiving and outputting mail pieces to be weighed and for supporting mail pieces while they are weighed, and a feeder for successively feeding the mail pieces to the transport. A transducer supports the transport and generates and output representative of the load presented by pairs of mail pieces on the transport. After a current item and a previous item are weighed together on the transport, the transport is energized to output the previous item and replace the previous item with the current item, and the feeder is energized to input a next item to the transport as a new current item. The postage metering system computes the weight of the current mail piece as the difference between the weight measured for the current mail piece and the previous mail piece weighed together and the weight of the previous mail piece and determines the appropriate postage in accordance with that weight. The postage metering system prints the previous mail piece with the postage determined for it when it was the current mail piece as it is output. Cumulative error is tracked and when it exceeds predetermined limits a single mail piece is weighed to reinitialize the error accumulation cycle.