Patent ID: 7044330
Filing Date: 2006-05-16
Classification: G07F

Abstract:
1. An article dispensing apparatus, comprising: a storage area for storing articles along a plurality of longitudinal axes in adjacently positioned, axially aligned, columns; an article extracting device which is positionable adjacent to and exterior of said columns, said article extracting device including a free end adapted for selectively extracting an article from a selected one of said columns; a positioning mechanism coupled to the article extracting device and responsive to control signals for positioning the free end of the article extracting device in alignment with the longitudinal axes of said selected column; a drive mechanism coupled to the article extracting device for moving the free end in a direction aligned with the longitudinal axes of the selected column; and user interface and control apparatus for allowing a user of the dispensing apparatus to initiate an article dispensing operation, and to generate control signals for causing controlled movement of the article extracting device so that a selected article is extracted from the article storage area and moved to a dispensing area of the dispensing apparatus; further including: a plurality of a first-type of alignment structure, each first-type of alignment structure being independently positionable with respect to other ones of said plurality of first-type of alignment structures, and each first-type of alignment structure facilitating alignment of articles in at least one of said columns, and a second-type of alignment structure for facilitating alignment of a plurality of said first-type of alignment structures, said second-type of alignment structure being easily movable from fully inside to at least partially outside of the storage area so that individual ones of said first-type of alignment structures can be individually removed from said second-type of alignment structure and individual ones of said first-type of alignment structures having articles stored therein can be individually placed back into said second-type of alignment structure, all while said second-type of alignment structure is at least partially outside of the storage area.