GB1141104A - Apparatus controlled by punched cards - Google Patents

Abstract

1,141,104. Statistical apparatus. J. KESSLER. 13 May, 1966 [14 May, 1965], No. 21484/66. Heading G4M. In a system for producing 'reminder notices' for variable operations to be performed on successive due dates, e.g. the payment of patent renewal fees, punched master cards are produced for each patent and/or application these cards bearing fixed data identifying the patent, the day and month on which renewal fees are payable and the year (zero order) preceding that in which the first fee is payable, and these are used in conjunction with tariff cards bearing information as to the amount of fees payable in the successive years of the term of a patent, to produce a third punched card bearing all the information required for the performance of the operation. Various sorting, collating and tabulating operations are performed in sequence to collate the master and tariff cards, to compute the difference between the current year and the zero order year, this difference being used to extract the appropriate fee from the tariff card or cards, this being punched twice on an annuity card together with the necessary identifying information. Finally a collating operation is performed to bring together name and address cards of a client with all the master, annuity and other auxiliary cards relating to a patent or patents on which action is required, the details of the necessary action being extracted from the cards.