Emergency post office setting for remote setting meter

US5058025A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• F.M.E. Corporation · US

Inventors

• John G. Haines · Oakland, US
• Tracy F. Slaughter · Grass Valley, US
• Charles P. Barker · Pleasanton, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Mar 23, 1989
• Grant date: Oct 15, 1991
• Expiry date: Mar 23, 2009

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G07B2017/00935
• WIPO field: Control
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A technique for securely adding postage to a remote setting postage meter without the remote setting code. The technique is readily implemented in the meter software. During this technique, the meter is manually set by a Post Office Clerk by putting the meter into a post office mode by pressing selected keys, entering the desired amount of postage, and exiting the mode. After exiting the mode, the meter is capable of printing postage. After printing some non-zero postage, the customer notifys a data center computer of the manual setting by performing an emergency clear procedure. First, the customer puts the meter into a remote setting mode by pressing selected keys. In this mode, the meter will generate and display an emergency request code. The customer passes the emergency request code with other identifying information to the data center computer. The computer generates its own emergency request code and compares the codes. If they are equal, then the computer will communicate an emergency enable code to the customer for entry into the meter. Upon confirmation against an internally generated emergency enable code, the meter will enable itself to be remotely set again.