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US 11,244,274 B2Granted
Induction unit and label generator
AssigneeUnited States Postal Service
InventorsPeter Klausner, Robert E. Dixon, Jr.
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Systems described herein for controlling, requesting, and coordinating the creation and generation of labels can be a label broker, providing a centralized location for storing label information created by various entities, and managing the requests for generation of physical labels coming from various sources and entities.
Claims18
A system for labeled induction of an item into a distribution network, the system comprising:
- a label provider configured to:
- receive, from a sender communication device, a request for a label to distribute an item via a distribution network, the request for the label including a sender address identifying a location from which the item is being distributed;
- create a label based on the request for the label;
- and
- transmit, to a distribution server, the created label for the item;
- and
- the distribution server in communication with the label provider, wherein the distribution server is configured to:
- receive, from the label provider, the created label;
- generate a machine-readable identifier for the label;
- store, in a data storage device, the created label and an association between the created label and the machine-readable identifier;
- receive, from an induction communication device, the machine-readable identifier for the label and location information for the induction communication device;
- retrieve the created label from the data storage device based at least in part on the machine-readable identifier;
- determine that the location information for the induction communication device is within a threshold distance of the sender address;
- and
- cause, via the induction communication device, generation of a physical label based at least in part on the created label retrieved from the data storage device, wherein the generation of the physical label is deferred for a period of time subsequent to the generation of the machine-readable identifier and wherein the physical label is generated in response to determining that the location information is within the threshold distance of the sender address.
12 more elements
A system for labeled induction of an item into a distribution network, the system comprising:
- one or more processing devices;
- and
- a computer-readable storage medium storing machine readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processing devices, cause the system to at least:
- receive, from a label provider, information for creating a label for distributing an item via a distribution network;
- receive a sender address identifying a location from which the item is being distributed,
- receive, from the second communication device, location information for the second communication device;
- create a label using the information for creating the label;
- generate a machine-readable identifier for the label;
- store, in a data storage device, the created label and an association between the created label and the machine-readable identifier;
- transmit, to a first communication device, the machine-readable identifier for the label;
- receive, from a second communication device, the machine-readable identifier for the label;
- retrieve the created label from the data storage device based at least in part on the machine-readable identifier;
- determine that the location information for the second communication device is within a threshold distance of the sender address;
- and
- in response to determining that the location information is within the threshold distance of the sender address, cause, via the second communication device, generation of a physical label based at least in part on the created label.
12 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.