Patent ID: 7798362

Claim:
A merchandise hold down mechanism for use in a vending machine, said mechanism comprising: (a) an elongated upright shaft having a series of vertically spaced and outwardly projecting teeth defined thereon between lower and upper ends of said shaft; (b) a ring-shaped member; (c) a latch device fixedly cantilevered to said ring-shaped member and latchable to said upright shaft in cooperation with said teeth thereon so as to permit unassisted movement of said ring-shaped member and said latch device therewith downward along said shaft due to the influence of gravity on said ring-shaped member but not upwardly along said shaft due to manually lifting said ring-shaped member without first unlatching said latch device from said shaft, wherein said latch device includes a casing fixedly connected to said ring-shaped member at a location spaced between a pair of said support arms, said casing extending inwardly from said ring-shaped member and disposed about said shaft such that said shaft extends substantially vertically through said casing; (d) a plurality of support arms equally spaced apart from one another and fixed to and extending inwardly from said ring-shaped member; (e) a plurality of platens each independently of one another being movably and reciprocally mounted on and disposed below one of said support arms; and (f) a mechanically acting element made of yieldably resilient material mounted between said platens and said support arms for exerting a relatively weak downwardly directed force on each of said platens independently of other of said platens so as to bias a respective one of said platens to move downwardly away from a corresponding respective one of said support arms and against a top one of a plurality of items in a corresponding one of a plurality of stacks aligned with and under said plurality of platens while at the same time said element being yieldable to permit said platen to move upwardly toward said support arm to accommodate the stacks of items having different heights as items are successively dispensed from bottoms of successive stacks.