Package making – With means responsive to a sensed condition – Concurrent control of contents and receptacle feeds
Reexamination Certificate
2000-03-06
2002-04-02
Kim, Eugene (Department: 3721)
Package making
With means responsive to a sensed condition
Concurrent control of contents and receptacle feeds
C053S493000, C053S495000, C053S900000, C053S131200
Reexamination Certificate
active
06363687
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to tablet filler cells having high security and unique functional features, and systems with multiple cells having individual cell security and master computer control for rapid, accurate individual prescription filling with enhanced quality control features. The cells include, for example, tablet filler devices with a starwheel for filling, which relies upon a stepper, tablet counting motor, tablet inspection mechanisms, unacceptable tablet ejection, counting confirmation sensors and closed system filling stations. These systems have high speed qualities, ultra-high security, isolation of each different type of tablet from each other, quality control redundancies and fool-proof aspects at the filling and labelling stations.
2. Information Disclosure Statement
Tablet dispensing is accomplished on a small scale basis at the local level closest to the end user—namely, at pharmacies, dispensaries, clinics and other medical services related facilities. At this level, simple, manual, dispensing devices are employed, such as “lazy susan” type rotating dispensers with columns containing different types of pharmaceuticals or rows of dispenser columns containing different types of pharmaceuticals. In these environments, the multi-pharmaceutical manual dispenser is typically maintained in some sort of locked fashion, such as in a cabinet or in a secured dispensing room. At the other end of the spectrum, mega quantities of tablets are filled and distributed by pharmaceutical manufacturers. Massive filling equipment is employed in government regulated “clean rooms” or “clean buildings” and macro security in the form of locked rooms and employee ID programs are utilized.
Recently, a company called “ScriptPro” has developed a prescription fulfillment system for community ambulatory and managed care pharmacies. This has been designed for the local level with a robotic prescription dispensing system which handles 200 or so different types of tablet or capsules and fills and labels up to 90 prescriptions per hour. This is described in ScriptPro LLC's 1998-99 Catalog No. 3000-0000.001, entitled, “Robotic Prescription Dispensing System” and available at http://www.scriptpro.com/catalog.
The ScriptPro SP 200 system described in the above has been developed to handle different types of tablets in a single system and operated at a maximum of 90 prescriptions per hour. On the other hand, the present invention system has been developed for regional level prescription fulfillment such as may be handled by mail order prescription firms and internet firms and similar vitamin firms, etc. Unlike ScriptPro, the present invention system can fulfill 5000 to 6000 prescriptions per hour and relies upon separate filler cells for each different type of tablet and/or bottle size. Further, the present invention system operates in a totally different manner with different subsystem components.
The particular tablet filler units utilized in the individually secured cells and the multi-cell system of the present invention could be any available commercial tablet filler which is computer controllable and affords quality control features. However, the preferred embodiments are the ones that have extremely high speed fulfillment utilizing the starwheel tablet filler devices described in more detail below.
The following patents are representative of the state of the art of filler devices:
U.S. Pat. No. 3,871,295 describes a capsule orienting and turning apparatus and method for use in a spin printing procedure in which a printing roll moves at a greater speed than the capsule, thus causing the capsule to rotate about its own axis while it is being printed. Many capsules, randomly arranged in a hopper, are picked up in a rotary conveyor which arranges them first in vertical arrangement relative to the path of movement of the conveyor, some capsules upright and some inverted, and an air jet shifts the body portions of the upright capsules in the machine direction so that the cap portions can subsequently be shifted in a sideways direction by a subsequent sideward-directed air jet. Those capsules which are inverted are not affected by the first air jet because of a barrier which prevents their movement; the cap portions of these inverted capsules are blown sideways by the sidewardly directed air stream. In this way, the positions of the capsules are rectified, with all of the cap portions on one side of the predetermined path and all of the body portions on the other side of the predetermined path.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,889,591 describes a branding machine for automatically printing indicia on tablets, pills, candies or any other products of any similar shape and/or size, which comprises a hopper unit, a feed unit including at least one rotary drum having the periphery formed with a plurality of radially inwardly recessed receptacles arranged in at least one row and a printer unit. The receptacles are successively communicated with a vacuum source for receiving the products therein under suction at first, then with a source of compressed air for posture correction of said products within the associated receptacles, again with the vacuum source for holding the posture-corrected products in a definite posture thereby to enable them to be printed by the printing unit, and finally with the compressed air source for successively ejecting the printed products on to a subsequent processing station. A method for reproduction of the indicia on the products.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,925,960 describes a machine for filling containers with discrete articles comprising a series of elongated slat members movable in a closed path, a portion of the slat members having an outer surface with a multiplicity of spaced apart cavities therein. The path comprises spaced apart cavity charging and discharging stations. Means at the charging station deposit articles in the cavities. The slat outer surfaces tilt at the discharge station for the simultaneous discharging of articles. Container delivery means continuously feed containers at a predetermined uniform speed along a line parallel to the direction of elongation of the slat members and below the level of slat members at the discharge station. A first set of stationary article-guiding chutes is disposed in side-by-side relation at said discharge station, each chute having an upper inlet and tapering to a narrowed outlet. A second set of chutes is supported for movement in a closed path, each chute being generally vertically disposed and having an upper inlet wider in the direction of chute travel than any first set chute outlet and a lower outlet smaller than its inlet. The closed chute path includes a portion extending the full length of the slat members with chutes in that path portion aligned with the container feeding line and the first set chute outlets. Drive means are provided for driving the container delivery means, for driving the chutes such that each chute moves with its outlet aligned with a moving container, and for driving the slat members.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,231,462 describes a turning and orienting apparatus of the type adapted to transport capsules in a plurality of pockets or the like, which pockets are formed in a continuously moveable transport conveyor, and wherein said apparatus is further adapted to rectify the capsules, which have body portions and cap portions of greater transverse dimensions than the body portions, and wherein a vacuum is provided to shift the capsules into the desired rectified position, a capsule portioning guide is provided to retain each capsule in its pocket immediately prior to its being subject to the vacuum. The capsule positioning guide then releases the capsule as it subjected to the vacuum. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the capsule position is pivotally mounted adjacent the capsule transport conveyor so that it can be easily moved out of its operative condition adjacent the transport conveyor for easy cleaning thereof.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,377,971 describes an
Luciano Lawrence W.
Luciano Robert A.
Smith Richard L.
Glynn Kenneth P.
Kim Eugene
Luciano Packaging Technologies, Inc.
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