Patent ID: 7775205

Claim:
A medicament dispenser for use with a medicament carrier having a plurality of pockets for containing medicament wherein said pockets are spaced along the length of and defined between two peelable sheets secured to each other, said dispenser having an internal dispensing mechanism for accessing said medicament contained within said medicament carrier, said mechanism comprising, a) an opening station for receiving a pocket of said medicament carrier; b) a peeling arrangement positioned to engage a base sheet and a lid sheet of a pocket which has been received in said opening station for peeling apart said base sheet and said lid sheet, to open said pocket, said peeling arrangement including a lid driving arrangement for pulling apart a lid sheet and a base sheet of a pocket that has been received at said opening station, said lid driving arrangement comprising a wheel on which said lid sheet is wound, said wheel having an effective winding surface, the diameter of which increases as more lid sheet is wound about said wheel; c) an outlet, positioned to be in communication with an opened pocket through which a user can remove medicament from said opened pocket; d) an indexing arrangement for indexing in communication with said outlet, pockets of a medicament carrier in use with said medicament dispenser, said indexing arrangement being interconnected with said lid driving arrangement such that movement of one correlates with the movement of the other; and e) in communication with the indexing arrangement and lid driving arrangement, a clutch arrangement for compensating for an increase in diameter of said effective winding surface of the lid driving arrangement by allowing for slippage when tension in the lid sheet is greater than the force required to pull apart the lid sheet and the base sheet, said clutch arrangement comprising a gearing surface defining plural gear engagement positions; and plural gear teeth for engaging said plural gear engagement positions to enable transmission of a drive therebetween, wherein the gearing surface and the plural gear teeth are configured and arranged such that at any one time only a single one of the gear teeth is in driving engagement with a gear engagement position.