Secure postage meter in an ATM application

US5826246A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Pitney Bowes Inc. · US

Inventors

• Feliks Bator · Easton, US
• William Berson · Weston, US
• John L. Campo · Trumbull, US
• Kathryn V. Lawton · Branford, US
• Andrei Obrea · Seymour, US
• Michael Y. Swaluk · Redding, US
• Monroe A. Weiant, Jr. · Trumbull, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Dec 31, 1996
• Grant date: Oct 20, 1998
• Expiry date: Dec 31, 2016

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G07B2017/00233
• WIPO field: Control
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A postage metering capability is integrated in an automated teller machine. With minimal modification and using several components of the ATM to perform functions useful in dispensing of postage, the secured environment of an ATM is used to implement numerous postage metering functions. When used with a smart card, postage value is accounted for without reference to an internal vault of the apparatus or to a postal facility, by using a vault of the smart card. The smart card may be used to dispense postage by accessing a customer's postage account at a remote center to set into the internal vault a value to be dispensed, with communication secured in accordance with information provided by the smart card. Using such information, the customer's postage account may also be accessed to recharge the vault of the smart card, rather than the internal vault. Additionally, postage may be dispensed in accordance with value inputted directly by a customer, using cash, credit-, debit-, or money-cards. The internal vault of the postage meter is used when accounting for postage dispensed in accordance with such directly inputted value.