Appeal No. 2003-1052
Application 09/222,644
In an open metering system, the indicia are made
secure by including addressee information in the
encrypted evidence of postage printed on the mailpiece
for subsequent verification. It is an absolute
requirement of the United States Postal Service that an
open system indicium include the destination zip code
in the barcode data of the indicium (see Information
Based Indicia Program (IBIP) Open System Indicium
Specification, dated July 23, 1997). The system of
Cordery et al. requires that each digital token must
include encrypted information based on the recipient
address for verification to occur because the system
of Cordery et al. is an open metering system, and not
a closed metering system.
Because we have concluded that both references relied upon
by the examiner to formulate the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103
are open systems, the combined teachings and suggestions of them
within 35 U.S.C. § 103 would not have yielded the claimed subject
matter of independent claim 1 on appeal regarding a closed system
postage meter.
In reaching our decision to reverse the rejection for the
claims on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 103, we observe in passing
that there appears to be somewhat blurred distinctions between
open and closed systems in the art surrounding the timeframe of
the filing date of December 30, 1998 of this application. At the
bottom of page 9 of the specification as filed, appellants make
reference to a prior art virtual, closed system postage meter as
described in the Serial No. 08/993,358, filed on December 18,
9
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