Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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System and Method for a Multiple-Site E-mail to Letter Mail Svstem
Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for generating postal
mail or
letter mail from electronic mail.
Background of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for generating postal
mail or
letter mail from electronic mail. The computer industry has experienced
unparalleled growth
due to the widespread utilization of wide area networks, including the
Internet. This has
created a telecommunications revolution and radically changed the methods in
which people
communicate. With the worldwide reach of the Internet, electronic mail
messages can now
be exchanged within seconds or minutes between senders and receivers situated
thousands of
miles apart. Electronic mail message volume is now ten times that of
traditional postal mail.
However, just as telephone access is not yet universally available in all
parts of the
world, neither is Internet access. It is often necessary for a person with
Internet access to
communicate with a person without Internet access. Additionally, as e-mail has
become
ubiquitous, the printed letter retains a presence and impact, for both
personal and business
communications, unmatched by electronic mail messages, which can seem
temporary and
irrelevant by comparison.
But conventional postal mail is more expensive and slow. Although the delay
can be
acceptable for persons located within a relatively limited geographical
region, the cost and
time required for postal delivery is increased even more when a letter must
travel long
distances and across international borders. Courier services can reduce the
time required for
delivery but at a cost many times that of conventional mail.
Solutions have been developed and implemented that accept electronic mail
messages
from users and convert them to printed postal mail messages for conventional
mail delivery to
the recipient. MCI Mail has offered such a service to its subscribers for more
than ten years.
However, most systems use a central printing and mailing center for their
services.
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In July 1981, Canada Post Corporation and Telecom Canada developed an e-mail
to
postal mail system. Twenty-five printers located in twenty cities across
Canada would print
postal mail messages transmitted to the system electronically by users. The
selection of a
printer for a particular message was made on the basis of the postal code of
the recipient of
the message. See for example D.J. Rhynas et al., "EnvoyPost: A Hybrid
Electronic Mail
Service," Telecom Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 1984, pp. 203-214. With
this method,
the time required for delivery of the printed letter was decreased to the
twenty cities with
printers. However, this arrangement operated only in Canada, and made the
selection based
solely upon geographic proximity between the printer and the intended
recipient. The
arrangement did not provide users the option to select printing locations
based upon whether
lowest cost or fastest delivery were desired.
Summary of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for using a network of
offices or
stations dispersed throughout the world to provide a service that converts e-
mail messages to
postal or letter mail messages and places the resulting postal mail messages
into a country's
postal system for delivery to a recipient in that country or in another,
nearby country.
In a preferred embodiment, the user enters his e-mail message either by using
the
service's World Wide Web site or by simply sending an e-mail with appropriate
address
information of the recipient to the electronic mail address of the service.
The user does not
know the best location to print out the message and place it into the postal
mail stream, how
much postage is required, or even what countries the e-mail-to-postal-mail
stations are
located in.
In a preferred embodiment, the service determines alternate locations for
printing the
postal mail message that provide the fastest delivery and the lowest cost by
using a table
pairing the country in which the recipient is located with countries
containing a printing
station that will provide the fastest or least cost delivery of the postal
mail message. The
service then presents the user with a menu of options to select whether lowest
cost or
expedited delivery is desired. When the user selects the desired delivery
option, the service
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routes the message to the printing location corresponding to the delivery
option selected by
the user.
The present invention thus provides a system for converting electronic mail to
postal
mail comprising at least one central station for receiving and processing
requests from users
and a plurality of printing stations, said central station further comprising
a routing table
comprising one or more countries of destination, each said country of
destination returning
the location of the printing station which provides the lowest postal cost to
that destination
and the location of the printing station which provides the most rapid average
delivery time to
that destination.
The present invention further provides a system for creating and sending mass
mailings comprising at least one central station for receiving and processing
requests from
users and a plurality of printing stations, said central station further
comprising a routing table
comprising one or more countries of destination, each said country of
destination returning
the location of the printing station which provides the lowest postal cost to
that destination
and the location of the printing station which provides the most rapid average
delivery time to
that destination.
The present invention further provides a method of converting electronic mail
to
postal mail comprising the following steps: (a) accepting an electronic mail
message and
destination address at a central station from a user of the system via
Internet or other
electronic means; (b) determining from the destination address provided by the
user if the
printing station providing the least-cost means of delivery is different from
the printing
station providing the most rapid delivery; (c) providing the user with the
option to select
between printing stations if the printing station providing the least-cost
means of delivery is
different from the printing station providing the most rapid delivery; and (d)
routing the
message from the user to the printing station selected by the user.
The present invention further provides a method of creating and sending mass
mailings comprising the following steps: (a) accepting an advertising message
and destination
address at a central station from a user of the system via Internet or other
electronic means;
(b) determining from the destination address provided by the user if the
printing station
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providing the least-cost means of delivery is different from the printing
station providing the
most rapid delivery; (c) providing the user with the option to select between
printing stations
if the printing station providing the least-cost means of delivery is
different from the printing
station providing the most rapid delivery; and (d) routing the message from
the user to the
printing station selected by the user.
The present invention further provides a system for converting electronic mail
to letter
mail for postal or courier delivery comprising at least one central station
for receiving and
processing requests from users and a plurality of printing stations, said
central station further
comprising a routing table comprising one or more countries of destination,
each said country
of destination returning the location of the printing station which provides
the lowest postal
cost to that destination and the location of the printing station which
provides the most rapid
average delivery time to that destination.
The present invention further provides a method of converting electronic mail
to letter
mail for postal or courier delivery comprising the following steps (a)
accepting an electronic
mail message and destination address at a central station from a user of the
system via
Internet or other electronic means; (b) determining from the destination
address provided by
the user if the printing station providing the least-cost means of delivery is
different from the
printing station providing the most rapid delivery; (c) providing the user
with the option to
select between printing stations if the printing station providing the least-
cost means of
delivery is different from the printing station providing the most rapid
delivery; and
(d) routing the message from the user to the printing station selected by the
user.
Brief Description of the Drawings
In drawings which illustrate a preferred embodiment of the invention by way of
example only,
Figure 1 shows the system configuration of a preferred embodiment of the
present
invention deployed in South America;
Figure 2 shows the connections of the central and printing stations to the
Internet;
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Figure 3 is a diagram of a central station in Brazil consisting of an Internet
server, a
mail processor, and a printer;
Figure 4 shows a routing table located in the central station used to
determine
alternative printing options based on different routing methods in a preferred
embodiment;
and
Figure 5 shows an HTML menu presented to the user to select the routing method
for
a specific destination in the preferred embodiment.
Description of the Preferred Embodiment
In creating a worldwide system to convert electronic mail to postal mail,
initially a
single printing center location can be selected to provide coverage to an
entire continent. In
such a system, the printing center location that provides the fastest delivery
and the printing
location that provides the lowest delivery cost are one and the same. However,
as subsequent
printing center sites are established within a continent, their locations will
be selected to
decrease delivery time to the largest number of potential recipients. These
locations also
create alternative delivery choices.
For example, a printing center located in a country spanning a large
geographic area
will usually provide the lowest-cost delivery because the required postage
will be a lower,
domestic rate. However, a printing center in another country may provide a
lower cost
delivery because of differences in currency conversion rates. In addition, a
printing center
situated just across the border from the recipient in an adjacent country may
provide a faster
delivery time although at a higher international postage rate. It is the
object of this invention
to provide the user of an e-mail to postal mail conversion service the ability
to select between
alternative printing locations based on the user's needs for the message being
sent. The user
may select between the printing center location that provides the lowest cost
delivery to the
country of destination and the printing center location that will provide the
fastest delivery to
the country of destination.
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Figure 1 depicts a preferred embodiment of the system deployed across the
continent
of South America. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, central station
1 in Brazil
receives a request through the Internet from users located throughout the
continent. Printing
stations for the system are located in Bolivia 4, Brazil l, Columbia 5, and
Paraguay 6, as well
as in Chile 7.
Figure 2 is a diagram of the South American mail network described in Fig. 1.
The
Internet 8 connects the central station 1 in Brazil and the printing stations
in Bolivia 4,
Columbia 5, Paraguay 6, and Chile 7. A system incorporating the claimed
invention may
duplicate this structure throughout the world, including the provision of
multiple central
stations, but for the sake of simplicity, only the South American mail network
is depicted in
Figure 2.
Figure 3 is a diagram of the central station 1 in Brazil. The central station
provides a
point of contact for users through the Internet as well as serving as a
printing station. The
central station contains an Internet server 9 for receiving and processing
requests from users
through the Internet. The Internet server accepts messages from users, as well
as name and
address information for the intended recipient. Once the Internet server has
received a
message transmitted by a user, the destination location is passed to routing
table 10. The
routing table may be located either within the Internet server or in a
separate computer, and
contains a complete list of countries serviced by the central station.
An example routing table is depicted in Figure 4. Each row in the routing
table
contains a country 11 serviced by the central station, the corresponding
printing station
location 12 that will provide the least-cost delivery, a value 13 indicating
the number of days
on average a letter sent from this printing station location 12 will take to
reach the selected
destination country 11, the correct postage amount 14 for postal delivery to
that destination,
the printing station location 15 corresponding to selected destination country
11 that will
provide the fastest delivery time, a value 16 indicating the number of days on
average a letter
sent from this printing station location 15 will take to reach the selected
destination country
11, and the correct postage amount 17 for postal delivery to that destination.
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Postage amounts 14 and 17 will be the amounts in the currency of printing
stations 12
and 15, respectively. The postage value corresponding to the printing station
location
selected by the user is transmitted to the selected printing station location
along with the
message to be printed and delivered. In some cases, the value in 14 will be
higher than the
value in 17 due to the differences in the currency values between the country
that printing
station 15 is located in and the country that printing station 12 is located
in. However, after
converting the values in 14 and 17 to a common currency, value 14 will always
be lower.
Differences in currencies are calculated whenever routing tables are created
or updated to
select the printing station for each country of destination that provides the
lowest cost
delivery. Routing tables are updated frequently (once a day or more) to
reflect changes in
currency exchange rates.
When a user enters a name, address and destination country of a recipient on
an
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) form presented by the Internet server on the
user's
computer, the Internet server checks it against the list of countries serviced
by the central
station. If the user has mistyped the name of the country the recipient is
located in, the
Internet server can suggest a country located on the list of countries
serviced by the central
station that most closely matches the country typed by the user and ask the
user for
confirmation.
After the country of the recipient is correctly identified, the Internet
server determines
the printing station location that provides the lowest cost delivery and the
estimated average
time for delivery to that recipient from that location by referring to the
routing table entry for
the country of the recipient. Next, the Internet server determines the
printing station location
that provides the fastest delivery time as well as the estimated average time
for delivery to
that recipient from that location.
If the location in the routing table for both the least-cost and the fastest
delivery
routing method is the same, the Internet server sends a confirmation message
to the user
indicating the cost and delivery time for the message. However, if two
different locations are
identified by the two different delivery methods, the different costs and
delivery times are
presented to the user as shown in Figure 5, and the user is directed to select
which method is
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preferred. Optionally, as shown in Figure 5, an expedited routing location
using a local
courier service or premium postal service may be contained in the routing
table.
When the user confirms the routing information, or selects the delivery option
if
multiple options are available, then the system may prompt the user for
billing account
information. If the user does not already have a billing account, the Internet
server may ask
the user for a credit card number or other form of payment information.
Once payment processing has been completed, the message is then transmitted
securely over the Internet to the selected printing station. The printing
station receiving the
message then prints the message, places it in an envelope addressed to the
recipient, affixes
sufficient postage for the delivery, and causes the envelope containing the
printed message to
be placed in the local mail stream. If an expedited delivery option has been
selected, either
additional postage for a premium postal delivery service is added, or the
envelope is prepared
for courier delivery instead of being placed in the local mail stream.
In an example use of the preferred embodiment of the invention shown in Figure
1,
central station 1 in Brazil receives a request through the Internet from a
user located in
Venezuela 2 to transmit an e-mail message to a recipient 3 located in Chile.
Printing stations
for the system are located in Bolivia 4, Brazil l, Columbia 5, and Paraguay 6,
as well as in
Chile 7, where the recipient is based.
A system based upon the prior art would route the e-mail message for printing
in
Chile without regard to the time required for delivery. However, a system
incorporating the
described invention will use the routing table to determine that a faster
alternative exists for a
destination in Northern Chile (determined by either reference to a postal code
or the
destination city) and present the user with the choice of printing in Chile or
printing in
Bolivia.
A further advantage of the described preferred embodiment of the invention is
that the
routing tables can be changed quickly and easily. This allows new tables to be
loaded that
contain new routing information in response to increases in postage rates,
slowdowns or
strikes by postal workers in a country, or failures of printing stations.
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The system and method herein described are also adaptable for application in a
system
to provide mass mailings of a targeted nature. In such a system, a user
transmits a
multiplicity of advertising messages to a large number of users. It is
sometimes the case that
not all messages are intended to be transmitted to all users, but instead are
targeted based
upon marketing information to provide advertising messages tailored to the
preferences and
buying patterns of each intended recipient.
The system handles such a targeted mailing message in the same way. All
advertising
messages intended for the same recipient are gathered together and printed
serially so that
they can be placed in a single envelope for further cost savings. Each
recipient's destination
country is passed through the routing table 9 to determine the proper country
of printing.
Then, the proper amount of postage determined by the routing table is affixed
to the
envelope, and the envelope is placed in the local postal mail stream.
What has been described are the presently preferred embodiments of a system
and
method for a multiple-site e-mail to postal mail system that efficiently
routes mail to be
printed in a way that minimizes the cost andlor time required for delivery
through
conventional postal methods. It should be apparent that many modifications to
the system
and method are possible without departing from the true spirit and scope of
the invention.
