System and method for printing personalized postage indicia on greeting cards
AssigneeE-Stamp Corporation
InventorSalim G. Kara
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and method for printing a postage meter stamp, including a desired postage amount and a personalized postage indicia onto a label or an envelope for use in conjunction with a computer generated greeting card. A processor based system is programmed to interact with a customer to produce individualized greeting cards, printed address labels, and a printed postage meter stamp having a customized postage indicia. The processor based system will automatically calculate the postage due for a specific greeting card, print that postage amount as a meter stamp, interact with the customer to generate a personalized stamp indicia, encrypt selected information into a machine readable format, and print the information entered by the customer in a selected format.
Claims40
A processor-based system for printing a desired amount of postage for mailing a document created within said system, wherein the system is under the control of a set of instructions from a document generating program and a separate postage generating program, said system comprising:
- an interface program integrating said document generating program with said postage generating program;
- means for temporarily coupling said integrated programs to a postage storage device;
- means for automatically calculating a correct amount of postage for a particular one of said documents as a function of mailing parameters entered into said system and specific to said particular document;
- means for formatting data to be sent to a printer coupled to said system, wherein said formatted data is operable to print said correct amount of postage;
- means for selectively creating a postage indicia together with said correct amount of postage;
- and
- means for printing said created postage and postage indicia.
A processor-based system under the control of a set of instructions from a document generating program, said system comprising:
- a postage indicia generating program;
- means controlled in part by a system user for selecting a particular postage indicia from a plurality of postage indicia;
- and
- means for formatting data to be sent to a printer coupled to said system, wherein said formatted data is operable to print selected ones of said postage indicia on a transfer medium.
An automated system for generating a personalized greeting card, said system comprising:
- means controlled in part by a system user for generating selected customized greeting cards;
- means for determining the correct postage for mailing each said selected greeting card;
- means for generating a personalized postage indicia for each said selected card, wherein said personalized postage indicia bears a relationship to the selected greeting card;
- means for printing said customized card;
- and
- means for printing said personalized postage indicia together with said correct postage.
A method for generating a personalized greeting card, said method comprising the steps of:
- generating a customized greeting card controlled in part by a system user;
- determining the correct postage for mailing said customized greeting card;
- generating a personalized postage indicia for said customized card, wherein said personalized postage indicia bears a relationship to the customized greeting card;
- printing said customized card;
- and
- printing said personalized postage indicia together with said correct postage.
A method for printing a desired amount of postage for mailing a document created within a processor system, wherein said system is under the control of a set of instructions from a document generating program and a separate postage generating program, said method comprising the steps of:
- integrating said document generating program with said postage generating program;
- temporarily coupling said integrated programs to a postage storage device;
- automatically calculating a correct amount of postage for a particular one of said documents as a function of mailing parameters entered into said system and specific to said particular document;
- formatting data to be sent to a printer coupled to said system, wherein said formatted data is operable to print said correct amount of postage;
- creating a postage indicia together with said correct amount of postage;
- and
- printing said created postage and postage indicia on a medium for subsequent transfer to a mailing envelope.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.