FR2837040A1 - Mixed transmission any format messages sender/receiver having switching centre/distribution bureau message sending communications network and receive unit producing certified identical double/returning acknowledgement - Google Patents

Abstract

The mixed transmission process has a specialised switching centre (12) for message transmission from a distribution bureau (15) via a telecommunications network (11). There is a mechanism to reproduce the message in a material form. The mechanism creates a certified identical double of the message and sends an acknowledgement back to the sender.

Description

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COMBINED TRANSMISSION OF MAIL IN FORM
IMMATERIAL AND MATERIAL AND DEVICE FOR IMPLEMENTING
WORK OF THIS PROCESS
DESCRIPTION Technical area
The present invention relates to a mixed method of transmitting mail in immaterial and material form between a sender and at least one recipient. It also relates to a mixed mail transmission system for implementing this method.

State of the prior art
Electronic mail, known as e-mail, is enjoying increasing success, mainly due to its speed of routing and the fact that it can be attached to computer files of a priori arbitrary format and size (texts, spreadsheets, software, sounds , still or moving images etc.).

 This electronic mail nevertheless has drawbacks linked to the disappearance of the "paper" material support, which are for example: - the impossibility of sending electronic mail to recipients who are not equipped, such as households without a computer; - the impossibility, under current forms, of granting the least legal value to a purely immaterial transmission. There is no

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 especially not the equivalent of registered mail with acknowledgment of receipt.

 The subject of the invention is a method combining the advantages of intangible electronic transport (speed) and conventional mail delivery services (national coverage, physical service), further saving some of the physical means of transport ( rail, road or air), and the part of postal sorting that takes place in specialized centers.

Statement of the invention
The present invention relates to a mixed method of transmitting mail in intangible and material form between a sender and at least one recipient, characterized in that it comprises the following steps: - dispatching the intangible to a specialized center; routing of this mail in immaterial form between this server center and at least one distributor office; - reproduction of this mail in the form of mail in the form of a hardware switching server; - distribution of this mail in material form to each recipient.

 Advantageously, this process comprises a preliminary stage of delivery of the mail by the sender to a specialized dispatch center.

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 Advantageously, this method comprises a step of temporary archiving of the mail by the specialized switching server.

 Advantageously, during the step of reproducing the mail in physical form, the method comprises a step of creating an identical certified duplicate for an acknowledgment service. The method of the invention then comprises the delivery to the recipient of an acknowledgment of receipt on paper and the return of this acknowledgment of receipt to the sender.

 The method of the invention can operate on an ISDN or Internet type network. Mail in material form can be produced on a material support taken in particular from the following supports paper, CD-ROM, magnetic disks. The distribution stage can be carried out in particular by factor carrier or grouping of companies.

- au moins un centre de commutation spécialisé ; - au moins un bureau distributeur comprenant des moyens de reproduction sous forme matérielle ;
Ces différents centres étant reliés entre eux par un réseau, de télécommunication. The invention also relates to a mail transmission system for implementing this method which comprises: - at least one specialized dispatch center;

- at least one specialized switching center; - at least one distributor office comprising means of reproduction in material form;
These different centers being linked together by a telecommunications network.

 The invention therefore relates to a mail transmission system which makes it possible to associate the

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 intangible transport of information by telecommunication networks, such as ISDN or Internet, with delivery in the form of traditional mail, for example on paper.

 The invention allows, among other things: - the routing of electronic mail to distribution points without electronic reception means, or even printing means or electronic archiving means; - the sending of electronic mail by registered mail with acknowledgment of receipt, with a paper trail giving a legal date for sending and delivery.

 In the case of the service with acknowledgment of receipt, the mail transmission service also returns to the sender in the form of conventional mail a certified copy of the mail delivered, accompanied by the paper document constituting acknowledgment of receipt signed by the recipient.

 Several variants of these services are made possible, such as temporary electronic archiving which guarantees the reproduction of original copies in the event of accidental loss, blocking due to social problems etc.

 This last service is deeply in progress compared to the usual mechanism of registered mail with acknowledgment of receipt on the following points: - speed of routing, without obligation 30 of physical deposit in a post office; - legal certainty that the recipient's copy is identical to that of the depositor,

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 since they will have been reproduced on paper and certified by the same distributor office.

 This last characteristic gives the document a legal value equal to or greater than conventional registered mail A. R., since the paper copies of the document itself are certified by the postal service, especially if it is the responsibility of the public authority.

 The system of the invention can be extended to the delivery of mail in the form of computer files on a physical medium, for example on magnetic disks, on CD-ROM.

 The service is paid for by any known method of subscription, payment of "kiosk" type access, billing by access providers, or electronic payment.

 The main advantageous features of the invention are therefore the following: - mixed electronic and conventional mail transport system; basic service including electronic departure and delivery in the form of paper mail; - service with acknowledgment of receipt, comprising an identical certified copy for the sender; - service extended to other physical media.

Brief description of the drawings - Figure 1 illustrates the different sub-assemblies of the system of the invention;

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 - Figure 2 illustrates the typical equipment of electronic sender equipment; - Figure 3 illustrates the equipment of the dispatch office; FIG. 4 illustrates the reception and reproduction equipment of a distributor office.

Detailed description of embodiments
FIG. 1 illustrates the different subsets of the system of the invention. In this figure is shown a general communication network 11, such as the Internet, allowing the transmission of electronic mail, a switching and archiving server center 12, an electronic sender station 13, a shipping office 14, for example an equipped post office; for dispatch to the public service, a distributor office 15, equipped for receiving and physically reproducing the documents received.

 As illustrated in FIG. 2, equipment of the electronic sender type 13 can comprise a microcomputer 20 provided with a modem 21, of the switched telephone network or ISDN type, and optionally with a scanner 22 for copying paper documents in the form of image files, this modem 21 communicating with a modem 23 for access to the network 11.

 FIG. 3 illustrates the equipment of a dispatch office 14. The scanner 32 and modem 31 equipment, similar to that of FIG. 2, are connected to a local server 30 via a local network 33.

 The reception and reproduction equipment in the distributor office 15, illustrated in FIG. 4, includes a local server 40 provided

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 in particular a graphic printer 41 and writing units for magnetic disks 42 and CD-ROM 43 connected on a local area network 45 of the distributor office (for example a post office). The server 40 is connected to a modem 44 via the local network 45.

suivantes : (a) REMISE Dans un premier cas possible, il y a envoi direct des documents sous forme électronique, dite courrier électronique, vers des centres serveurs de commutation spécialisés. The method of the invention comprises the steps

following: (a) DELIVERY In the first possible case, documents are sent directly in electronic form, called electronic mail, to specialized switching centers.

 In a second possible case, an electronic copy of the document is produced in a shipping office 14, for example a post office, which sends them in the form of electronic mail to the same server centers 12.

(b) ROUTING
The routing by network of copies of these electronic mails is carried out by these server centers 12 towards the mail distributing offices 15 which serve the desired distribution points.

 In an alternative embodiment, it is then possible to carry out temporary archiving for a predetermined duration.

(c) REPRODUCTION ON MATERIAL SUPPORT
This reproduction on material support can be a reproduction in paper form (mail

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 classic). Standard packaging can then be produced in an envelope.

 This material support can also be a magnetic disc, a CD-ROM ...

 In an alternative embodiment, it is then possible to create an identical double certified for the service with acknowledgment of receipt.

(d) DISTRIBUTION
The documents are distributed according to the classic process (postman's tour, business grouping ...

 Alternatively there may be delivery with acknowledgment of receipt on paper which is then returned to the sender with a certified identical copy.

 We will now illustrate the practical execution of these different steps, based on the figures.

DELIVERY STEP
Electronic discount
In the case of a purely electronic delivery, the sender prepares a simple e-mail comprising the postal address information, the accounting information (payment) and an attachment (in English attached file (s), i.e. - say a text, image, mixed text and image file etc. in a standard format specified by the postal service.

 Multiple files can be grouped and advantageously compressed by various methods

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 known such as ZIP compression. Transparent transport over a network, admitting only text files, is ensured by known encoding such as the UUE standard.

 The devices used include, as illustrated in FIG. 2, the standard computer 20, equipped with the modem 21 connected via the network 11, telephone or ISDN, to an Internet access point, or to a kiosk type access point such as than those offered 10 in France by France Telecom.

 The images on paper are advantageously encoded in the form of image files by means of the scanner 22.

Delivery to shipping office
The sender gives the desk 14 desk a paper copy of his documents and completes an ad hoc form. For example, it can be the original handwritten or typed letter.

 The operator of the dispatch service can: - either immediately encode the electronic mail using a computer equipped as in the previous case - or, queue the document for subsequent encoding by operators.

 In the latter case, the original may, according to the instructions of the sender, either be destroyed or be returned to the sender by normal mail.

 Self-service computers can be used in the context of the invention.

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ROUTING STAGE
Networks 11, such as the Internet or "kiosk" services, advantageously route electronic mail to specialized server centers 12, according to known techniques such as TCP / IP protocols.

 These centers 12 provide temporary storage, and send them back to the mail distributing offices 15 equipped for the service that is the subject of the invention, those closest geographically to the distribution point.

 The use as is of electronic mail services such as those provided by the Internet is not recommended since such networks give no guarantee of end-to-end routing.

 A variant of the invention is the storage of a backup copy for a predetermined period agreed with the sender, for the purpose of duplication in the event of loss, proof of dispatch, etc.

REPRODUCTION STAGE
The e-mails finally reach the local server 40 of the distributor office 15 closest to the point of delivery.

 Ordinary mails are simply printed on devices 41 ensuring reproduction of predetermined quality, such as laser printers. In parallel with label printers, or operating directly on envelopes,

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 reproduce the address information (sender recipient).

 Human operators or special machines such as those already used by diffusers well known to those skilled in the art, introduce mail into the addressed envelopes.

 These envelopes then enter the normal circuit of physical distribution.

 In the case of service with acknowledgment of receipt: - an ad hoc delivery form is produced in addition, and attached to the copy of the recipient; a second copy is prepared for physical shipment to the sender.

DISTRIBUTION STAGE
Final delivery of mail is done by normal means, such as a letter carrier tour.

 In the case of mail with acknowledgment of receipt, the duplicate copy temporarily kept at the distributor's office is sent to the sender as soon as the acknowledgment of receipt signed by the recipient is returned.

 In this way, the sender and the recipient have rigorously true physical copies with a certain delivery date, certified by the postal service.

 This last result is greater than or equal to the usual process, plus the time saved by electronic routing. The sender who performs

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 electronic delivery is initially exempt from all paper-based administrative operations.

TREATMENT OF EXCEPTIONS
Those skilled in the art can easily see that the multiple possible anomalies such as: - false sender; - error on the address - recipient unknown or having changed address etc; can be processed according to normal mail procedures. Indeed, from the reproduction, the mail conveyed according to the process of the invention has all the characteristics of the usual mail.

DOCUMENTS OTHER THAN ON PAPER
Those skilled in the art can easily see that the system described immediately extends to other media, the distributor office being able to reproduce all or part of the files in magnetic form (example floppy disk), optical form (example CD-ROM), or on any medium that comes to standardize.

Claims (6)

 CLAIMS 1. Device (40-45) for receiving and reproducing in physical form a mail previously sent in immaterial form via a specialized switching center (12) then routed between this switching center (12) and a distributor office (15 ) via a telecommunications network (11), this device comprising means (41-43) for reproducing this mail in material form, characterized in that it also comprises means (40-43) for creating an identical double certified of said mail for an acknowledgment service comprising a return of said certified duplicate to the sender of said mail. 2. Reception and reproduction device (40-45) according to claim 1, characterized in that it is further arranged to edit, with the material reproduction of this mail, an acknowledgment of receipt of said mail. 3. Method for receiving and reproducing in physical form a mail previously sent in immaterial form via a specialized switching server center (12) then routed between this switching server center (12) and a distributor office (15) via a telecommunications network (11), comprising a step of reproducing this mail in material form, characterized in that it further comprises a step of creating an identical certified duplicate of said mail for an acknowledgment service comprising a return of said double certified to the sender of said mail. 4. System for transmitting mail in intangible and material form, comprising: <Desc / Clms Page number 14>  - In a dispatch center (14), means (13) for transmitting via a telecommunications network (11) a mail in the form of an electronic file to a switching server center (12), - means for routing this mail from this switching center (12) to a distributor office (15), and - in this distributor office (15), means (40-43) for reproducing this mail in material form, and means (40-43) to create an identical certified duplicate of said mail for an acknowledgment service comprising a return of said certified duplicate to the sender of said mail. 5. System according to claim 4, characterized in that the switching server center (12) comprises means for temporarily storing the mail routed before sending it to the distributor office (15). 6. System according to one of claims 4 or 5, characterized in that it further comprises means for storing for a predetermined period a backup copy of the mail conveyed in intangible form.