Intelligent physical mail handling system

• US 8,346,674 B2
• Filed: 10/30/2006
• Issued: 01/01/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Agrawal, Kavita, Bodin, William K.
• Primary Examiner(s): JABR, FADEY S
• Application Number:
  US11/554,391
• Publication Number:
  US 20080104179A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,255 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1.1, 705/330, 705/401, 700/90, 700/224
• US Class Current: 705/330
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

A system and method for handling unwanted physical mail pieces having a sorter and imager which intercepts one or more pieces of physical mail, which produces an electronic image of a front panel of each piece of mail, and which physically retains pieces of mail in temporary physical storage, and which cooperates with an optical recognizer to determine an intended recipient for each retained piece of mail, further cooperating with a server that notifies the intended recipients and receives a choice for disposition of the mail, and including a destruction which destroys said pieces of mail rejected by the intended recipient.

Claims

1. A system for handling unwanted physical mail pieces and preventing future delivery of similar mail comprising:

a discard collection bin which;

receives one or more pieces of physical mail discarded by a recipient of the physical mail, the recipient being indicated as an addressee of the physical mail,

routes the received piece of physical mail through a scanner to produce an electronic image of the front panel of each piece of discarded physical mail, and

immediately subsequent to the producing of an image and without requiring a command from a user, shreds the received piece of physical mail into a collection basket;

an optical recognizer device which receives the front panel image from the discard collection bin, determines from the front panel image a sender identification and a recipient identification; and

a server computer which receives the sender and recipient identifications from the optical recognizer and electronically notifies the sender of discarded mail to discontinue any mailings to the recipient, wherein the notification requires no command from the user.

2. The system as set forth in claim 1 wherein the optical recognizer is co-located with the discard collection bin.

3. An automated method for handling unwanted physical mail pieces and preventing future delivery of similar mail comprising:

receiving by a discard collection bin one or more pieces of physical mail discarded by a recipient of the physical mail, the recipient being indicated as an addressee of the physical mail;

routing by the discard collection bin the received piece of physical mail through a scanner to produce an electronic image of a front panel of each piece of discarded physical mail;

immediately subsequent to the producing of an image and without requiring a command from a user, shredding by the discard collection bin the received piece of physical mail into a collection basket;

receiving by an optical recognizer device the front panel image from the collection bin;

determining by the optical recognizer a sender identification and a recipient identification from the front panel image;

receiving by a server computer the identifications from the optical recognizer; and

electronically notifying by the server computer the sender of discarded mail to discontinue mailings to the recipient, wherein the notifying requires no command from the user.

4. The method as set forth in claim 3 wherein the optical recognizer is co-located with the discard collection bin.

5. A computer program product for handling unwanted physical mail pieces and preventing future delivery of similar mail, wherein the computer program product comprises a computer readable memory having computer usable program code executable by a processor, comprising:

first computer usable program code to, subsequent to receiving into a discard collection bin one or more pieces of physical mail discarded by a recipient of the physical mail, produce an electronic image of a front panel of each piece of received physical mail, the recipient being an addressee as indicated on the front panel;

second computer usable program code to receive the front panel images from the discard collection bin, and to determine a sender identification of each piece of received piece of mail; and

third computer usable program code to receive by a server computer the sender identifications from the optical recognizer, and to electronically notify the sender to discontinue any mailings to the recipient, wherein the notifying requires no command from the user;

wherein the first, second and third computer usable program code are stored by the computer readable memory.

6. The computer program product as set forth in claim 5 further comprising fourth computer usable program code stored by the one or more computer readable memories to aggregate acceptance information, rejection information, or both, and to produce a report regarding the information.