Article dispensing – With recorder – register – indicator – signal or exhibitor – Dispenser part position or adjustment indicator
Patent
1995-06-15
1997-05-20
Skaggs, H. Grant
Article dispensing
With recorder, register, indicator, signal or exhibitor
Dispenser part position or adjustment indicator
221 89, 221122, 221151, B65G 5900
Patent
active
056305257
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is filed as the national stage of PCT/DK93/00424 filed Dec. 17, 1993, which is incorporated herein by reference.
The invention relates to dispensers for consecutive dispensing of tablets in a fixed order.
For certain medical treatments tablets with varying medicine content must be taken in a fixed order. E.g. some tablets with one medicine content may be taken one a day for some days and thereafter tablets with another medicine content through the following days and so on.
For the dispensing of anticonception tablets dispensers are known for a consecutive one a day dispensing of 21 to 28 tablets. Such dispensers are shaped as flat round boxes with a lid having an opening which may be stepwise clicked along the periphery of the box to consecutively dispense tablets stored lying on their mainly flat side in chambers arranged along the periphery of the box.
A wish has occurred for dispensers containing tablets for a longer treatment period. However, an arrangement of more chambers along the periphery of the box would make it necessary to let the box have a larger diameter, which would make the box less easy to carry in a pocket. A doubling of the box diameter would make the box accommodate a double number of tablets, but would quadruple the unused dead space in the middle of the box.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,604,559 discloses a dispenser wherein the tablets are stacked in three layers along the periphery of a box of the kind having a dispensing opening in its lid. The tablets are herein piled with their flat sides against each other, the three layers being displaced half a tablet diameter in relation to each other. In each layer the tablets are accommodated in circular openings provided along the periphery of an individually rotatable disc. The tablets in the layers are lying on their flat side along the periphery of the dispenser. A better utilization of the space may be obtained by putting the tablet on their edge and let them be oriented radially in the dispenser.
It is the object of the invention to provide a simple and compact dispenser for consecutive dispensing of tablets in a fixed order.
This is obtained by a dispenser comprising
a cylindric body defining along its periphery a number of juxtaposed vertical chutes each accommodating a number of tablets piled on edge radially oriented in the body,
a cup shaped dispensing part comprising a bottom plate and an upstanding cylindric wall on this plate, the plate forming a stop at the lower end of the chutes, and the cylindric wall having at its lower end adjacent to the bottom plate a slot forming an opening allowing a tablet on edge to pass from the outside of the cup into the inner space thereof, a protrusion above the slot extending radially outwards from the cylindric wall into the space between a tablet abreast of the slot and a possible overlying tablet in the chute, and a radially outwards extending wall adjacent to the slot and extending into the lower ends of the chutes, and
a detent mechanism making the body and the bottom part stepwise unidirectionally rotatable in relation to each other, the number of steps corresponding to the number of chutes, and the direction of rotation being so that the chutes are moved from a position abreast of the slot towards the radially extending wall.
The cylindric wall of the dispensing part may at its upper end carry a stop ring which is along its periphery provided with walls which in each of the step positions of the dispensing part form continuations of the chutes, the stop ring being secured to the dispensing part to rotate with this part in relation to the body. This construction serves a locking of the unidirectional stepwise movement of the dispensing part in relation to the body when the device is turned upside down, as the upper tablets in the chutes will then roll to a position where these tablets are abutting partly the walls of the chutes and partly the walls of the stop ring.
The chutes may be tapering being widest at their top. Thereby it may be ensur
REFERENCES:
patent: 3095085 (1963-06-01), Meijer
patent: 3527383 (1970-09-01), Borsum et al.
patent: 3604559 (1971-09-01), McCall et al.
patent: 4228920 (1980-10-01), Burton
patent: 4667845 (1987-05-01), Frazier et al.
patent: 4807757 (1989-02-01), Rappaport
patent: 5127543 (1992-07-01), Meisels
patent: 5152422 (1992-10-01), Springer
Christoffersen Peter Bender
Hansen Ib
Harrington, Esq. James
Novo Nordisk A S
Skaggs H. Grant
Zelson Esq. Steve T.
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