Classifying – separating – and assorting solids – Sorting special items – and certain methods and apparatus for... – Condition responsive means controls separating means
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-12
2001-07-03
Walsh, Donald P. (Department: 3653)
Classifying, separating, and assorting solids
Sorting special items, and certain methods and apparatus for...
Condition responsive means controls separating means
C209S509000, C209S522000, C209S523000, C209S524000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06255614
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to specimen-container transfer apparatuses with which specimen containers containing blood, urine, or other biological samples used in clinical testing are taken out of a specimen-container rack and put into a housing rack in a prescribed order. It is particularly suitable for connection to a conveyance unit that shuttles specimen-container racks between analyzers.
2. Description of Related Art
In clinical testing in hospitals and test centers, various tests such as blood tests, biochemical tests, and general tests are conducted using blood, urine, and other such biological samples. The analyzers used in these tests are generally equipped with a sampler that automatically takes measurements once a specimen-container has been put into the specimen-container rack. Furthermore, conveyor systems that automatically transfer specimen containers between a plurality of analyzers have come to be used in recent years to improve efficiency (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Applications 63-217274 and 3-94159).
There are times when a specimen-container that has been tested in this way must be re-tested, depending on the test results thereof, the results of other tests, or the like. The specimen containers used in tests are therefore stored for a few days. This is desirable if each specimen-container rack is stored with the specimen containers just as they were when tested, but because specimen-container racks are slender in shape normally for five or ten specimen containers, a place must be prepared for the racks where they will not be tipped over and the order of the specimen containers changed. The standard procedure in testing is to assay specimens in the order they arrive, but this may be interrupted by an emergency specimen-container, or certain special specimen containers may be taken out, so finding the desired specimen-container can be difficult even if they were arranged in order after being measured, and this creates problems in terms of emergency testing, and the like, for facilities that handle large numbers of specimens.
Herein, it is preferable for specimens to be sorted by branch of medicine, in-patient/out-patient, etc., or for them to be rearranged into a suitable order by specimen-container ID numbering. This is manual work, however, and places a tremendous burden on facilities that handle a large number of specimens, which is why it is not actually performed very often.
This work conceivably could be automated by devising a conventional specimen-container conveyor unit by installing behind the analyzer a unit that rearranges into a prescribed order assayed specimen-container racks. But just rearranging the specimen containers in blocks of specimen-container racks will not be very effective unless the specimen containers are also arrayed in the specimen-container rack in the proper order.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to transfer assayed specimens automatically to a specimen-container housing rack in a predetermined order without being restricted in any way by the order in which the specimen containers are set into the specimen-container rack and assayed.
The present invention was conceived in order to achieve the stated object, and provides a specimen-container transfer apparatus equipped with: a conveyance unit for transferring specimen-container racks; a specimen-container ID reader for reading specimen-container identification signals from the specimen-container racks transported by the conveyance unit; a specimen-container housing-rack table on which specimen-container housing racks for housing specimen containers can be set up; specimen-container transfer means for taking specimen containers out of specimen-container racks and putting them into specimen-container housing racks; and a control unit for controlling the order in which the specimen containers are put into the specimen-container housing rack.
From the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, the foregoing and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5150795 (1992-09-01), Nakayama et al.
patent: 6151535 (2000-11-01), Ehlers
Nakaya Masanori
Takaoka Hidenari
Watanabe Toshio
Yamakawa Nobuyoshi
Beauchaine Mark
Shinjyu Intellectual Property Firm
Sysmex Corporation
Walsh Donald P.
LandOfFree
Specimen-container transfer apparatus does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Specimen-container transfer apparatus, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Specimen-container transfer apparatus will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2440798