PACKAGE SHIPPING METHOD

• US 20100217635A1
• Filed: 02/25/2009
• Published: 08/26/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/25/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Spears, Ronald
• Application Number:
  US12/392,868
• Publication Number:
  US 20100217635A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08355 Routing methods
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/28 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading, distribution or shipping

Abstract

A package delivery method and enterprise include receiving a shipping request including recipient information indicative of an intended recipient of the package, associating a dynamic address with the recipient, and generating an initial routing plan based on the dynamic address. The initial routing plan may including a plurality of routing segments derived from hierarchical addressing. In response to a change of either (a) a physical address associated with the dynamic address and (b) an availability of at least one of the plurality of routing segments, at least one of the plurality of routing segments may be modified.

Claims

1. A package delivery method, comprising:

responsive to receiving a request to ship a package, the request including recipient information indicative of a recipient of the package, associating a hierarchical address with the recipient, the hierarchical address including a plurality of region segments, wherein region segments correspond to geographical regions and wherein a geographical region associated with one of two adjacent region segments is contained within a geographical region associated with the other of the two adjacent region segments;

generating a routing plan based on a comparison between a hierarchical address of an origin of the package with the destination hierarchical address, wherein the routing plan includes at least one routing segment for each pair of adjacent region segments in the hierarchical address; and

storing the routing plan in computer readable storage.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein associating the hierarchical address with the recipient includes associating the hierarchical address with a street address associated with the recipient.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein associating the hierarchical address with the recipient includes associating the hierarchical address with a virtual address associated with the recipient.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the virtual address corresponds to a mobile telephone device associated with the recipient.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the virtual address comprises a phone number associated with the recipient.

6. The method of claim 3, further comprising, in response to determining a change in a physical location associated with the virtual address, dynamically altering at least one or more of the routing segments in the routing plan.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a label stack include a plurality of labels, wherein each of the plurality of labels corresponds to one of the at least one routing segments and indicates an origin and a destination for the corresponding routing segment.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

applying the label stack to the package; and

removing a label from the label stack at a conclusion of each segment to reveal an underlying label corresponding to a next segment.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the recipient information further includes an indication of a level of service and wherein said generating the routing plan is based, at least in part, on said indicated level of service.

10. A method of delivering a package to a recipient, the method comprising:

receiving a shipping request including recipient information indicative of an intended recipient of the package;

associating a dynamic address with the recipient;

generating an initial routing plan based on the dynamic address, the initial routing plan including a plurality of routing segments; and

responsive to a change in at least one of (a) a physical address associated with the dynamic address and (b) an availability of at least one of the plurality of routing segments, modifying at least one of the plurality of routing segments.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the recipient information is selected from the group consisting of an email address associated with the recipient, a mobile or landline telephone number associated with the recipient, and a network address associated with the recipient.

12. A dynamic route generator suitable for use in a package delivery enterprise, the dynamic route generator comprising:

a processor; and

computer readable storage, accessible to the processor, including processor executable instructions for;

associating a dynamic destination with a proxy for an indicated recipient of a package;

determining a last reported physical location (LRPL) for the proxy;

initially designating the proxy LRPL as the dynamic destination;

based on a comparison of the dynamic destination and an origin location associated with the package, generating a routing plan including a plurality of routing segments;

monitoring the proxy LRPL;

responsive to detecting a change of the proxy LRPL prior to delivery of the package, determining whether to modify the routing plan; and

after determining to modify the routing plan, modifying at least one of the routing segments and communicating said modifying to a carrier.

13. The dynamic route generator of claim 12, wherein the proxy for the indicated recipient comprises a mobile telephony device associated with the recipient.

14. The dynamic route generator of claim 13, wherein said determining of the proxy LRPL is based at least in part on physical location indications transmitted by the mobile telephony device.

15. The dynamic route generator of claim 14, wherein the physical location indications comprise global positioning system indications.

16. The dynamic route generator of claim 12, further comprising establishing recipient approval of a proposed modification of the routing segments prior to said modifying.

17. The dynamic route generator of claim 12, wherein determining whether to modify includes accessing a dynamic update setting associated with the intended recipient and determining whether to modify based at least in part on said dynamic update setting.

18. The dynamic route generator of claim 12, wherein the last reported physical location is a hierarchically formatted indication of the physical location, wherein the hierarchical formatting includes a plurality of region segments wherein a successive region segment represent a region within a region represented by a preceding region segment.

19. A computer readable storage medium comprising computer executable instructions for facilitating delivery of a package to an intended recipient, said instructions including instructions to:

acquire a last reported physical location associated with a proxy for the intended recipient;

generate an initial routing plan based on the last reported physical location and a physical location associated with an origin of the package;

monitoring the physical location of the proxy; and

responsive to detecting a change in the physical location before delivery of the package to the intended recipient is complete, determining whether to modify the routing plan.

20. The storage medium of claim 19, wherein the initial routing plan includes a plurality of routing segments, said instructions further comprising instructions for:

generating an initial set of shipping labels including a label for each of the routing segments in the initial routing plan; and

generating a modified set of shipping labels responsive to modifying the routing plan.