Article dispensing – Plural sources – stacks or compartments – With discharge means for each source
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-19
2003-01-07
Noland, Kenneth W. (Department: 3653)
Article dispensing
Plural sources, stacks or compartments
With discharge means for each source
C312S042000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06502718
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to machines for vending or dispensing discrete articles, and more particularly relates to an apparatus and a method for dispensing articles such as healthcare scrub suits and other textile products.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Scrub suits (or “scrubs”) are uniforms typically worn by doctors, nurses, and other medical workers in hospital operating rooms or other locations where the workers are likely to be in immediate proximity with patients. Scrubs provide an easily-changed launderable barrier between the wearer and the patient, helping to prevent the patient from being exposed to germs or potential infectants on the wearer's body or street clothing, and also helping to protect the wearer's body from direct physical contact with a patient.
Scrubs are usually two-piece garments consisting of a shirt and pants. The shirts and pants are stocked in different sizes to accommodate the needs of individual wearers. Although soiled scrubs are collected for laundering and subsequent reuse, the scrubs must be periodically replaced due to the wear and tear encountered in normal use.
Hospitals normally make scrubs available to doctors and other medical workers at no cost to those workers. Although each user is supposed to have only a limited number of scrubs at any given time, some users tend to hoard scrubs of their size to maintain their own personal reserve. Other users may appropriate extra sets of scrubs for their own personal use, at home or elsewhere outside the hospital. These and other improper uses of scrubs contribute to an unacceptable reduction in most hospitals' inventories of scrubs.
Some hospitals try to control the distribution of scrubs by requiring users to check out scrubs from personnel at central locations. Using this approach, each authorized individual is permitted to have no more than a certain number of scrubs in his or her possession at any time. The individual must return soiled scrubs to receive credit for clean scrubs. Although this approach can help to solve the problems mentioned above, the approach is expensive to implement because it requires paying employees to distribute the garments twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
It has been proposed to overcome the foregoing problems by dispensing scrubs from a vending machine. However, standard vending machines are not ideal for dispensing scrubs. These vending machines, which store items on deep shelves and which dispense items by pushing the items individually over the edge of the shelves so that the items fall into a receiving bin, are too bulky to be placed in hallways or other locations where scrubs dispensers are needed.
Another common kind of vending machine is the so-called pinwheel machine. Items to be vended are received in compartments on a pinwheel or carousel within the machine, and each item is given access to an exit door by turning the pinwheel to place the item in front of the door. Like the standard vending machines discussed above, these machines also have a size disadvantage because at least two dimensions of the machine (for example, depth and width) must be the same to accommodate the round pinwheel.
Another known kind of vending machine for dispensing surgical scrubs is described in our U.S. Pat. No. 5,638,985, which is incorporated herein by reference. Such vending machines include an array of interior receptacles, each of which may be loaded with a set of surgical scrubs. Access to these interior receptacles is controlled by both a series of rigid vertical slats positioned in front of the receptacles and a column of horizontal doors positioned in front of the slats. In order to dispense scrubs from a particular receptacle, the vending machine uses a “slot access mechanism” disposed within the interior of the vending machine to push the slats in front of the receptacle apart so that they do not block access to the receptacle. This allows a user to access the receptacle through one of the horizontal user doors. Alternatively, the rigid vertical slats may be replaced by a movable panel having a single opening equal in width to a single slot, which may be positioned within the vending machine so that the opening becomes aligned with a particular slot.
Despite the success of the vending machine taught in our U.S. Pat. No. 5,638,985, it is mechanically more complex than the proposed machine. But perhaps more importantly, because the receptacles and “slot access mechanism” are permanently affixed within the interior of the vending machine taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,638,985, in order to load the receptacles, an operator must transport a stack of scrubs to the vending machine and load the vending machine at the location of the dispenser in the hospital. Additionally, while the dispenser is being loaded, it is “out of service”. Therefore, reducing the time it takes to load a dispenser is of value.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a dispenser for dispensing surgical scrubs and other items that is compact, relatively simple in mechanical structure, and that may be loaded at a more convenient location such as the laundry.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention seeks to provide a compact dispensing apparatus and method that contains relatively few moving parts, that is inexpensive to manufacture and repair, and that may be loaded at a convenient location. The present invention accomplishes this by providing an array of receptacles for receiving goods to be vended, and a receptacle door that is disposed adjacent to the array of receptacles and that comprises at least one sheet of flexible material. The receptacle door is mounted for movement relative to the array of receptacles and defines an access region that selectively allows access to an interior of one or more of the receptacles while simultaneously blocking access to an interior portion of the other receptacles in the array.
The present invention further includes a drive apparatus for moving the receptacle door relative to the array of receptacles so that the receptacle door permits access to an interior of a selected target receptacle. A main door is mounted to normally prevent access to the access region of the receptacle door. This main door is controlled by a control mechanism that is operable automatically to enable access to the access region of the receptacle door after the receptacle door has been moved to permit access to the interior of the target receptacle.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the array of receptacles is an orthogonal array of receptacles having a plurality of adjacent horizontal rows and vertical columns of receptacles. In this embodiment of the invention, the receptacle door defines a vertical opening having a width that corresponds to the width of one or more of the individual receptacles. The drive apparatus is configured to move the receptacle door to a first position in which the vertical opening is substantially aligned with an opening in a first target receptacle in one of the horizontal rows of receptacles. In this position, the receptacle door blocks access to the interiors of all of the receptacles within that row of receptacles except the first target receptacle. The drive mechanism may later move the receptacle door horizontally along the row of receptacles so that the vertical opening is substantially aligned with an opening in a second target receptacle in the row of receptacles. In this position, the receptacle door blocks access to the interiors of all of the receptacles within the row of receptacles except the second target receptacle.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the receptacle door is mounted on the main door, and one end of the receptacle door's flexible material is partially wound on a first roller that is operable to move the receptacle door relative to the array of receptacles. Another end of the receptacle door's flexible material is preferably wound partially around a second roller so that the receptacle door extends between the first roller and the second roller and so that a por
Broom Ward P.
Fitzgerald Robert M.
Williams Warren Lee
Alston & Bird LLP
Innovative Product Achievements, Inc.
Noland Kenneth W.
LandOfFree
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