Patent ID: 7299109

Claim:
A vending machine for dispensing food or beverage items comprising storage and vend actuation means for a plurality of food or beverage items, currency validation means for authenticating a patron's payment to provide credit toward the purchase of a food or beverage item, token validation means for authenticating a promotional token associated with a proper subset of the plurality of food or beverage items, wherein the promotional token has at least one security feature distinguishable by the token validation means for identifying it as an authentic promotional token, promotional logic means for limiting the offering of available food or beverage items to the union of the proper subset of items associated with the validated promotional token and the subset of all items for which the item's price has been met or exceeded by applicable accumulated credit, token management means for clearing all accumulated credit and item selection limits attributed to the validated promotional token if a patron selects and the machine vends an offered item which is not a member of the proper subset of items associated with the promotional token, item selection means for a patron to select from among the offered food or beverage items, and vending machine control means for receiving currency and token validation information, for performing promotional logic and token management procedures, for receiving item selection information, and for producing a vend control signal for the corresponding vend actuation means for delivering to the patron his selection.