Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Reexamination Certificate
1997-06-04
2001-04-17
Voeltz, Emanuel Todd (Department: 2161)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
C053S492000, C209S003300, C209S584000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06219647
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for processing received postal items. Such methods and apparatuses are typically employed in mailrooms.
BACKGROUND ART
In European patent application 0 571 308 a method for processing received postal items is described in which, for each one of a plurality of received postal items, at least one pattern is recorded from the received postal item, recorded information representing the at least one recorded pattern is generated, and the received postal item is processed in accordance with processing instructions represented by the information recorded from the postal item.
Also disclosed in this document is an apparatus for processing received postal items, equipped with a registration assembly for recording patterns from received postal items and for generating recorded information representing the recorded patterns, and a processing structure connected to the registration assembly for processing received postal items in accordance with processing instructions represented by the information recorded from the postal items.
The recording of a pattern is for example carried out by scanning a bar-code pattern on a document or an envelope and the processing includes the sorting and routing of documents to different remittance processing devices responsive to coded information obtained by scanning the bar-code pattern of the respective envelope.
Direct integrated processing of received mail provides efficiency advantages in that it eliminates the need of handling batches of mail between successive processing operations. However, there is a need of efficiently preparing and maintaining records of incoming mail which can serve as a log for data regarding received mail. For example, in some organizations all envelopes in which mail has been received are stored for some time so that any items or data in or on these envelopes can be retrieved if necessary. It is also common practice to prepare lists of mail which has been received, but in combination with integrated processing of received mail, this entails the problem that items which have gone astray during the processing are missed.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a solution for efficiently obtaining data in an integrated mail processing system.
According to the invention, this object can be achieved by providing a method of of processing received mail in which the information representing the recorded pattern or patterns is stored in a log of received mail. Further, according to the invention, an apparatus suitable for carrying out this method can be provided by an apparatus of the initially identified type further provided with a data storage unit for storing a log of received mail, the storage unit being connected to the registration assembly for storing the recorded patterns in the log of received mail.
Since the recordal of a pattern from a postal item is carried out before the step of processing, any log or archive prepared on the basis of the same recording step will include any documents which are lost or damaged during the subsequent processing.
It is noted that the processing operation can be a routing or sorting operation as is known from the above-discussed European patent application. However, the processing operation can also include other steps, such as marking documents with a file number, opening envelopes, discarding junk mail, destroying documents with confidential information (while storing its contents in a file with limited access) or registering in a database that a response to a request has been received.
Particular objects, embodiments and advantages of the present invention are set forth below in the detailed description, the accompanying drawings to which reference is made in the description and in the claims.
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No author; “Office Automation; productivity through integration” 11/1984; Forbes v134, p161(16), DialogWeb copy pp. 1-18.
Edens B.
Gortemaker J.
Hidding G.
Burns Doane Swecker & Mathis L.L.P.
Dixon Thomas A.
Hadewe B.V.
Todd Voeltz Emanuel
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