Patent ID: 7160510

Claim:
A dispenser operation verification apparatus, wherein with a dispenser comprising: one or a plurality of transparent or semi-transparent liquid passages capable of liquid suction, discharge and storage; pressure control means for controlling the pressure in the liquid passage; transport means for effecting relative movement between a container and the liquid passage; and operation instruction means for issuing operating instructions to said pressure control means and said transport means, the operation of said dispenser is verified by providing; detecting means for detecting an optical condition of contents of said liquid passage, a movable region thereof or a part of that region, and judgement means for judging the result of the instruction related to an operation of agitation by sucking and discharging the liquid into or from the liquid passage respectively issued by the operation instruction means, based on the optical conditions of the contents of the liquid passage detected by said detecting means, and instructing to the operation instruction means based on the result of the judgement, wherein said judgement means judges whether or not conditions related to the contents of the liquid passage correspond to the instruction result, by analyzing an optical pattern composed of: the light amount, the light intensity or the image; temporal fluctuations of the light amount, the light intensity or the image; or the spatial distribution of the light amount, the light intensity or the image, detected by said detecting means.