Appeal No. 2003-1052
Application 09/222,644
1997 and incorporates it by reference into the specification as
evidence of an exemplary closed system postage meter. This
application matured into a patent on May 16, 2000 bearing the
U.S. Patent No. 6,064,993.
The Background of the Invention at columns 1 and 2 of this
reference discusses closed and open system devices, and column 2
makes reference to Cordery by patent number and characterizes it
as an open system. What is significant about the patentee's
contributions in the art is that the patent recognizes that prior
to his patent a so-called virtual postage meter was characterized
as an open system, whereas according to his disclosed invention a
virtual postage meter may be considered as a closed system. The
details of the three figures in this patent and the corresponding
discussion, however, do not indicate that the indicia printed on
the mailpiece according to his teachings would include addressee
information. In fact, column 3, lines 2 and 3 indicates that his
invention may utilize a low-cost device without the need to
include destination address as in open system meters. The nature
of the actual indicia that is processed according to the
invention involves a process where a printer module actually
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