Patent Document ID: 8578730
Application ID: 12550774
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A refrigerator comprising: a cabinet including at least one refrigeration compartment; a door mounted to the cabinet for selectively providing access to the refrigeration compartment; a dispenser provided in the door for selectively performing a dispensing operation, said dispenser including a dispenser well; a digital image capture device exposed to said dispenser well for capturing digital images of objects introduced into said dispenser well; a digital image analyzing system operatively connected to the digital image capture device, said digital image analyzing system being adapted to evaluate the digital images captured by the digital image capture device to determine a presence of human skin in said digital images; and a controller for regulating the dispensing operation based on an output of the digital image analyzing system wherein the controller prevents operation of the dispenser if human skin is detected before operation of the dispenser and stops operation of the dispenser if human skin is detected during the dispensing operation.