摘要:
A method for assigning unique printer resolutions or signatures, i.e., a unique number of dots per inch, to a class, or models of printers or lines of postage meters. The number of dots per inch or resolution may be specified within a image on a document or within a postal indicia and later checked to determine if the image on document or the postal indicia has the correct resolution. The foregoing would be able to detect an image or postal indicia that was scanned into a computer and printed with a printer that did not have the number of dots per inch specified in the image or postal indicia.
摘要:
A printing system for printing both secure value documents and non-secure documents while ensuring that fraudulent copies of secure value documents printed by the printing system can be detected is provided. The printing system determines if the source is a secure or non-secure source. If the source of the image is a secure source, it will print the image, including any graphic security features. If the source is a non-secure source, before printing the image a filter is applied to the image data to remove any graphic security features included in the received image and/or the printing system will not add any graphic security features to the received image to ensure that the printed image will not contain any copy detection graphic security features.
摘要:
A method that enables the recipient to receive notification of the letter mail, flats and/or packages (mail) that the recipient is going to receive prior to the delivery of the mail. The recipient is then able to inform a post or courier e.g., Federal Express®, Airborne®, United Parcel Service®, DHL®, etc. of the manner in which the recipient would like the mail delivered. The post and courier hereinafter will be referred to as “carrier”. For instance, the recipient may want the mail physically delivered to their house faster or slower, or the mail physically redirected to the recipient's temporary address, or physically delivered to the recipient's agent, or physically delivered to the recipient's attorney, or physically returned to the mailer, or have the carrier open the physical mail and have the post e-mail or fax the contents of the envelope to the recipient and/or parties designated by the recipient.
摘要:
The number of dots per inch or resolution may be specified within a image on a document or within a postal indicia and later checked to determine if the image or document or the postal indicia has the correct resolution. The foregoing is accomplished by specifying that the image on the substrate will be printed with n plus m dots per inch; rotating a ink jet head having n nozzles per inch about a axis parallel to a substrate by an angle &thgr; so that the ink jet head will produce an image on the substrate having (n/cos &thgr;) dots per inch; storing in a data center that the specified image will be printed with (n/cos &thgr;) dots per inch; analyzing the image to determine if the image has (n/cos &thgr;) dots per inch; and comparing the number of dots per inch in the analyzed image with the number of dots per inch stored for the specified image to determine if they have the same number of dots per inch.
摘要:
A signaling label for use in postage payment evidencing is described including a luminescent signaling section having a primarily green fluorescent ink coating. In one configuration, a primarily green fluorescent ink includes approximately 12 weight percent of a pigment selected from the quinazolinone class of pigments mixed with an acrylic varnish base to provide a primarily green fluorescent signal having with sufficient red fluorescent response to a short UV excitation to trigger a USPS facing system is described.
摘要:
A method and system for thermal printing of secure documents. A contact thermal printing system includes: a) thermal print head having at least one heater element; and b) a thermal printer controller. The printer controller is programmed to: 1) move the print head in a predetermined pattern while the print head is in contact with a top coating of a thermal print medium; 2) overdrive the heater element during predetermined parts of the pattern to a temperature sufficient to soften or melt the top coating, thereby forming a pattern of striations in the top coating; and 3) control the heater element to print at least part of an image on the medium. The contact surface of the print head can have a specific pattern of features for forming the striations, whereby a pattern of striations formed can encode information both in the direction of the motion of the print head and transversely to the direction of motion. The pattern of striations can form a bar code. The image can be a postal indicium printed on a document which is a mail piece, or other documents having value, such as tax stamps and tickets, can be printed.
摘要:
The disclosure describes an authentication system and related methods for authenticating printed objects. The system uses an information-based metric along with one or more print quality metrics to provide accurate detection or classification of a counterfeit printed object. The print quality metric evaluates attributes of a subject image associated with the original printer, ink or paper to detect degradation of those operations due to copying operations like an image scanning and halftone printing subsequent to the original printing of the object. The information-based metric measures message symbol errors in an optically readable code, such as a digital watermark.
摘要:
An ink supply system for a plurality of ink jet printheads offset from each other at different elevations includes an ink reservoir having a single outer casing and a plurality of individual ink wells inside of the casing, the plurality of individual ink wells arranged in a stepped relationship from each other and extending from a first ink well at a highest elevation to a last ink well at a lowest elevation, each of the plurality of individual ink wells supplying ink to and being lower in elevation than a corresponding one of the plurality of ink jet printheads for the purpose of controlling the negative pressure applied to the printheads to properly control the meniscus position at the nozzles for proper operation of the printheads; an ink supply having ink stored therein; and structure for supplying ink to the first ink well. The ink supply system operates such that at times when any specific one of the plurality of individual ink wells except for the last ink well receives an amount of ink greater than its capacity excess ink overflows out of the specific one of the plurality of individual ink wells and into an adjacent one of the plurality of individual ink wells which is lower in elevation than the specific one of the plurality of individual ink wells, and at times when the last ink well receives the amount of ink greater than its capacity excess ink overflows out of the last ink well and is returned into the ink supply.
摘要:
The present invention includes apparatus and methods for printing and verifying postage stamps on demand via a personal postage stamp printer. The indicium by which the stamp is printed includes a color stripe and a data field including authentication data that corresponds to the color stripe. To authenticate the stamp, the authentication data in the data field is read and compared with authentication data extracted from the color stripe.