Patent ID: 6994229

Claim:
A device for dispensing laminar items, comprising: a secure housing for containing an elongated flexible transport medium having a plurality of laminar items releasably adhered thereto successively along its length; a slot through which the transport medium can be discharged from the housing in its direction of elongation; a timer controlled drive means comprising a pair of pinch rollers for engaging the medium adjacent to the slot and, upon actuation, for driving a repeatable amount of the medium through the slot; control means operable upon command for actuating the drive means to drive only sufficient medium through the slot to expose a predetermined number of laminar items for removal from the medium; self-locking means for retaining the transport medium against forced manual movement when the drive means is not actuated such that the medium will rupture if an attempt is made to manually pull the medium out of the slot; the pinch rollers pressing on the medium with a sufficient frictional force to rupture the medium and laminar items in response to an attempt to manually pull the medium out of the slot; a scanning device; and the laminar items each including a machine detectable feature, the dispensing device halting each successive laminar item at a position not readable by the scanning device prior to receipt of a command to advance the transport medium.