Appeal No. 96-3645
Application 08/154,167
bar codes on mail pieces with a machine reader to determine
whether a minimum denomination of postage is affixed and
rejecting mail pieces having a stamp below the minimum.
Examiner’s Answer at 4 and 5.
Appellants challenge that finding. Substitute Appeal
Brief at 11 and 13. In response, the examiner refers to the
following passage from Whitehouse:
In this way, the same bar code scanners which
read the ZIP+4 encoding for sortation purposes can
also read and store the amount of postage and
originating account number. Therefore, postage
expenditure could be compared with postage purchases
for any user of this technology. This would offer
the U.S.P.S. a new and unprecedented level of
accountability. Column 9, lines 44-50.
Whitehouse also states that “[b]y accountability, we mean
how the application of proper postage is confirmed by the
U.S.P.S.” Column 8, lines 61-63. The examiner uses that
passage to contend that Whitehouse suggests checking for a
minimum amount of affixed postage, i.e., “proper postage.”
However, it is clear from Whitehouse as a whole that “proper
postage” refers only to whether postage affixed by a meter was
properly authorized and paid for. Whitehouse is a system for
combating counterfeit meter postage, not for checking whether
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Last modified: November 3, 2007