Patent ID: 6998270

Claim:
An apparatus for staining specimens carried on a plurality of slides, comprising: a tray configured to hold the plurality of slides; a plurality of reagent containers, each of said containers holding a volume of a reagent and including an upper wall, a base wall, and a tubular side wall interconnecting the base and upper walls, said upper wall spaced apart from said base wall along an imaginary line passing through the base and upper walls, said base wall having a plurality of distinct inwardly and downwardly converging wall sections that define a concave well with a nadir at a convergence of said wall sections and said upper wall having an access opening, said nadir and access opening being aligned with each other along said imaginary line, each of said reagent containers having associated therewith a two-dimensional data storage element containing encoded reagent information; a rack configured to hold said plurality of reagent containers, a robotic delivery system including a selectively and controllably movable probe configured to be positioned proximate selected ones of said reagent containers for withdrawing a reagent volume from said reagent containers and depositing the reagent volume on the slides according to a staining protocol, said robotic delivery system having an optical reader movable with said probe and configured to read said two-dimensional data storage element; and a control system programmable for conducting said staining protocol, said control system operatively coupled to said robotic delivery system for controlling said probe and operatively coupled to said optical reader for retrieving said reagent information read by said optical reader from said two-dimensional data storage elements for use in programming said staining protocol.