US 8,078,549 B2Granted

Systems and methods for a label with postage API

AssigneeUnited States Postal Service

InventorsStuart Willoughby, Ronald F. Smith, Daniel Lord, Charles Outman, Joseph A. Otten, John Gullo, Anna Vale

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Abstract

A label and a method for providing a label to a user is described. The label may be a mailing label to be placed on letters or parcels. The label includes information such as postage, delivery address, return address, and a barcode for tracking delivery information. A user may request both a label and postage in what, to the user, appears to be a single computerized connection on a single internet web-page. A postage indicia is provided through a postage provider with whom the user has a deposit or credit. The label itself may be generated through a label-generating application hosted or generated by an entity separate from the postage provider.

Claims7

Dependent claims

A computer-implemented method comprising:

registering an intermediary with a postage vendor;
authorizing the intermediary to access shipping APIs from a computer implemented shipping API system;
providing shipping information on a user interface to a user through the intermediary;
receiving by the intermediary a request from the user for a shipping label through the user interface;
delivering the request from the intermediary to the computer-implemented shipping API system through the shipping APIs;
determining by the computer-implemented shipping API system a postage rate for the shipping label;
delivering the request and the postage rate from the computer-implemented shipping API system to the postage vendor;
debiting by the postage vendor of a prepaid account having funds supplied by the user in at least the amount of the postage rate;
delivering postage indicia from the postage vendor to the computer-implemented shipping API system;
generating by the computer-implemented shipping API system the shipping label;
and
delivering the shipping label from the computer-implemented shipping API system to the intermediary and from the intermediary to the user;
wherein the intermediary, user, computer-implemented shipping API system, and postage vendor are each one of independent parties and interfaces relative to one another.

10 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.