Article dispensing – With recorder – register – indicator – signal or exhibitor – Dispenser operated display device
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-26
2001-09-11
Ellis, Christopher P. (Department: 3651)
Article dispensing
With recorder, register, indicator, signal or exhibitor
Dispenser operated display device
C221S124000, C221S127000, C221S1500HC
Reexamination Certificate
active
06286710
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vending machine and concurrently ice-box and, more particularly, to a vending machine and concurrently ice-box that has an integral form of a vending machine from which cold beverage and drink cans are obtained by putting a coin into it, and an ice-box where food is kept cool for a long time.
2. Discussion of Related Art
An ice-box is a box used to keep food cool for a long time and usually kept in a public place such as a fashionable hotel, etc. so as to provide paying guests with beverages and drinks.
When furnished in a hotel room, the ice-box is provided with a variety of beverage and drink cans for various tastes of the guests so that any paying guest can take beverages and drinks from it as he likes.
However, most of the related art ice-boxes are a closed box with no display function so that the guest has to open the door of the ice-box and see what kind of drinks are available.
For that reason, the related art ice-boxes are not so attractive to the paying guest visually, as a result of which the effect of sales promotion is deteriorated. Furthermore, an ordinary ice-box is designed to have multiple purposes and functions for a domestic use and therefore inadequate for sales of beverage and drink cans in a hotel room.
In addition, a service worker who takes care of the ice-box in the hotel must take the trouble to enter the room in person to check on what kind of drinks and how many drinks are taken by the guest and to charge the guest for the drinks right before the guest checks out. In a case where the ice-box is filled with beverage and drink cans of different kinds which determine the price of the individual beverage and drink cans, the service work has difficulty in billing the guest for the beverage or drink cans. There are some cases where the service worker charges the guest incorrectly so that he suffers from a large pecuniary loss. Therefore, most of ice-boxes have been managed in many hotels unavoidably under actual circumstances that a part of the sales amount for the beverage and drink cans in the ice-box is taken as a deficit. In some hotels, the guests are urged to deposit a certain amount of money in cash as prepayment for the use of the ice-box content during the check-in and repaid with a change before they check out.
Furthermore, there are some cases where the guest cannot remember accurately what beverages and drinks he had from the ice-box and takes much time in waiting for the confirmation of the service worker. In some cases, the guest is brought in a shameful situation when he remembers inaccurately. Those who use a hotel room equipped with no mini-bar has to take the trouble to call the service worker in order to order beverages or drinks. Since most of paying guests in a hotel room are reluctant to expose themselves to others, they usually give up ordering beverages or drinks and the ice-box in the room becomes useless.
In some rare cases, the hotel employs a terminal management system that automatically checks the beverages and drinks taken by the guest. However, such an automatic system is very expensive and ready to cause conflicts between the guest and the service worker frequently because the terminal management system may charge the guest even for an article moved slightly by mistake of the guest who is inexperienced in dealing with the system. The system is also disadvantageous in that it cannot receive articles out of a standard size.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a vending machine and concurrently ice-box furnished in a hotel room, etc. that serves the paying guest of the room with cold water and personal articles as a room service and enables them to conveniently purchase various kinds of beverages and drinks such as beer and side dishes for wine as they likes, wherein the vending machine and concurrently ice-box is provided with a counting function in itself.
To achieve the first object of the present invention, in a vending machine and concurrently ice-box with a cabinet-type main body having a relatively cold region formed therein, the vending machine and concurrently ice-box includes: an ice-box compartment for keeping food in the defined cold region of the main body; and a vending machine reservation compartment located at a position adjacent to the ice-box compartment in the main body, wherein the vending machine reservation compartment is sequentially provided with at least one kind of commercial beverage and drink cans and releases any one of the beverage and drink cans selected according to a specified order condition.
It is preferable that the ice-box compartment used herein includes: a controller for generating a order signal according to the specified order condition; and a rack unit for sequentially receiving at least one kind of the beverage and drink cans in the up-to-down direction and releasing any one of the beverage and drink cans based on the order signal.
It is preferable that the rack unit used herein includes: at least one rack for receiving at least one kind of the beverage and drink cans in the up-to-down direction; at least one driver motor turning at predetermined revolutions per minute according to the order signal received from the controller; and a rotatory cam for releasing one of the beverage and drink cans contained in the rack by a turning operation of the driver motor.
It is preferable that an exchange condition provider is further provided on the front surface of the vending machine reservation compartment, for providing the controller with a specified exchange condition for at least one of the beverage and drink cans to be released in accordance with the order condition.
It is preferable that the exchange condition provider used herein includes: a coin and note reader for sensing inserted coins and notes corresponding to the amount of the at least one of the beverage and drink cans as the exchange condition, and providing the order condition to the controller; and a card reader for sensing a predetermined amount of money stored in a magnetic card inserted as the exchange condition, and providing the order condition to the controller.
It is preferable that the magnetic card used herein is provided with a predetermined amount of money in prepayment, and if necessary, an amount of money remaining in the magnetic card is repaid to a user of the magnetic card, wherein the remaining money in the magnetic card is calculated by subtracting an amount of money corresponding to the price of the released at least one beverage and drink can from the amount of money prepaid.
It is preferable that a count display is further provided in a portion adjacent to the exchange condition provider, for displaying the type of the exchange condition and acceptable status, counting the number of the released beverage and drink cans and displaying the counted number.
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Crawford Gene O.
Ellis Christopher P.
McDermott & Will & Emery
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