System for personal mail piece tracking and tracing from multiple sources by user identifier

• US 10,304,026 B2
• Filed: 06/25/2014
• Issued: 05/28/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: The Escher Group, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: The Escher Group, Ltd.
• Inventors: Smith, Joshua R., Yarin, Paul Michael, Murphy, Michael J., Sutherland, II, Andrew Victor, Metois, Eric
• Primary Examiner(s): Ruhl, Dennis W
• Application Number:
  US14/314,849
• Publication Number:
  US 20140310195A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,798 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0833 Tracking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/234 for tracking messages

Abstract

A system and method for linking data objects and physical objects of various kinds to an identified user is described. The system provides to the identified user information relating to the delivery status of mail pieces directed to or sent by the user, and the user then tracks and traces the mail pieces. The system further provides to the identified user information relating to continued sessions through which the user provides to a postal service system information relating to mailing labels and postage.

Claims

1. A system for starting an online transaction session at a user computer node and reconstructing and continuing the online transaction session at a remote computer node, the system comprising:

one or more computers servers sharing and storing data, the one or more servers configured to;

receive, from a user computer node over a computer network, a user identifier (ID) and a password associated with a user to authenticate the user;

provide one or more first graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to be displayed over the network on the user computer node in response to authenticating the user at the user computer node;

receive, from the user computer node over the computer network, transaction session information to begin the online transaction session, wherein the online transaction session information is received during the online transaction session and in response to the information being provided through the one or more first GUIs at the user computer node;

link the received transaction session information, associated with the online transaction session that has begun at the user computer node, with the user ID;

store the transaction session information linked with the user ID;

receive, from the remote computer node over the computer network, the user ID and the password associated with the user to authenticate the user;

transfer, over the computer network, the transaction session information linked to the user ID to the remote computer node in response to authenticating the user at the remote computer node, wherein the transaction session information is transferred to the remote computer node utilizing a plurality of messages and each message includes a first field storing the user ID and a second field storing a transaction session ID of the online transaction session, and wherein the plurality of messages are utilized by the remote computer node to reconstruct the online transaction session at the remote computer node;

provide one or more second GUIs to be displayed over the network on the remote computer node to continue the online transaction session at the remote computer node in response to the transfer, wherein the remote computer node continues the online transaction session by providing additional transaction session information utilizing the one or more second GUIs; and

receive, from the remote computer node over the computer network, the additional transaction session information to continue the online transaction session at the remote computer node utilizing the additional transaction information with the stored transaction session information.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the transaction session information is associated with mailing a letter and includes at least one of:

mailing address information and postage selection.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more first GUIs are data templates that accept the transaction session information.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the user computer node is a personal computer executing a web browser that accesses a webpage associated with the one or more computer servers.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the remote computer node is a postal node at a post office.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the transaction session information linked with the user ID is stored as queued messages.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the one or more computer servers are further configured to broadcast the queued messages to one or more other remote computer nodes at a post office.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the online transaction session is continued at the remote computer node based on a selection, at the remote computer node, of the online transaction session from a list of different online transaction sessions.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the online transaction session is continued at the remote computer node from a point in the online transaction session when last transaction session information was received at the one or more servers from the user computer node.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the remote computer node and the user computer node are different nodes.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the remote computer node and the user computer node are the same node.