Patent Application
20070125794
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dispenser for tablets and more particularly to a novelty dispenser having a play action feature where an ornamental image such as a character image can be presented to the user and altered with each operation of ejecting a tablet.
2. Description of Related Art
Dispensers of pills, candy, confectionary lozenges have existed for a significant period of time. Breath mints and candy pellets have been provided with a manual operator button or lever to dispense the product to the user. Examples can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 2,705,576, U.S. Pat. No. 3,270,915, U.S. Pat. No. 3,422,991, U.S. Pat. No. 4,489,853, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,589,575. The prior art has also featured candy dispensers of a novelty configuration, for example U.S. Pat. No. 3,515,111 wherein the dispenser can be spring biased to propel confectionary items. U.S. Pat. No. 4,966,305 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,785,206 discloses dispensers for tablets and candies with apparently a character head providing an ornament feature at one end of the dispenser. U.S. Pat. No. 5,178,298 discloses a candy dispenser configured to simulate a beverage can.
As can be readily determined, a number of different approaches have been taken to provide manually operated dispensers for pills and confectionary items such as candies, and further novelty and ornamental features have been provided, particularly in the dispensing of candy items.
There is still a need in this field to provide novelty features to induce the purchase of such items above and beyond simply the dispensing of tablets to the user in both the children and adult field.
A tablet or candy dispenser assembly is provided having a hollow elongated housing member with a storage section and a dispensing section. A stack of tablets can be stored in the storage section and a bias unit can urge the stack of tablets towards the dispensing section. The housing member can be slid open to facilitate the loading of a new stack of tablets. A dispensing member such as hand operated lever is mounted adjacent an opening in the hollow housing member whereby an operator can selectively release an uppermost tablet from the stack of tablets. Mounted above the dispensing section is a rotable member for supporting an ornamental feature for display to the user. The ornamental feature is moved in coordination with the user activation of the operator input member whereby a tablet is dispensed along with the movement of the ornamental feature.
A cover member can extend over the rotable member and can have an opening or window to expose just one side of the rotable member. The rotable member can be a polyhedral member with multiple facets or sides and appropriate indicia can be provided on each of the facets. For example, an application for small children can have different expressions of a character face that can be rotated and exposed in the window with each dispensing of a candy tablet. A shutter mechanism can also be operated by the operator input member to close the window initially while the rotable member is rotated to provide: a different face when the shutter member opens the window upon the release of the input member.
As can be appreciated, other novelty features can be provided and an ornamental feature, for example, a novelty statement or comic statement can be provided in text characters. The indicia can also take the form of three dimensional relief images or it can be simply various animal faces painted on flat surfaces.
As a novelty adult item, breath mints can be disbursed and the rotable member can randomly spin while a shutter member covers the opening and novelty sayings can be presented to the user. To increase the number of text messages, a magnifier lens can be positioned in the opening to enlarge small printed messages while accommodating a larger number of messages to be viewed through the magnifier.
The objects and features of the present invention, which are believed to be novel, are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. The present invention, both as to its organization and manner of operation, together with further objects and advantages, may best be understood by reference to the following description, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings.
Reference will now be made in detail to the preferred embodiments of the invention which set forth the best modes contemplated to carry out the invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. While the invention will be described in conjunction with the preferred embodiments, it will be understood that they are not intended to limit the invention to these embodiments. On the contrary, the invention is intended to cover alternatives, modifications and equivalents, which may be included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. Furthermore, in the following detailed description of the present invention, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it will be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well known methods, procedures and components have not been described in detail as not to unnecessarily obscure aspects of the present invention.
The preferred embodiment of the present invention is disclosed in the drawings directed to a dispenser 2 with ornamental features directed to young children for dispensing candy tablets. While the dispenser 2 is an improvement over the prior art dispensers by providing a unique novelty feature, it can be appreciated that such ornamental features can be varied to address different age brackets, for example young adults with the dispensing of candy tablets or breath mint tablets. Thus, the dispenser 2 can be used by both children and adults and appropriate ornamental features can be varied for presentations as a novelty item directed to the particular intended user.
Referring to
A tablet dispensing opening 10 is positioned at the top of a cylindrical tablet storing section. As can be further appreciated, the hollow housing member 4 is designed to conform to the configuration of the tablets and if the tablets were rectangular, the housing member 4 could be rectangular. In this embodiment we are disclosing candy tablets 12 of a cylindrical configuration.
Mounted within a hollow housing member 4 is a storage casing 14 of a half cylindrical configuration which is configured for a sliding movement out of the housing member 4 to enable a user to recharge the candy tablets 12. Mounted at the top of the storage casing 14 is a cylindrical casing 16 that also defines an upper surface or edge of the tablet dispensing opening 10. A support elevator member 18 has a pair of side flanges 20 and 22 journaled within elongated longitudinal grooves 28, 30 of a matching configuration on the interior of the housing member 4. A compression spring 24 is secured on a keeper 26 integrally molded into the bottom of the storage casing 14. An elongated slot 27 is on the right hand side of
Referring to
Referring again to
Referring to
A rotatable member 66 having, for example, a polyhedral shape is journaled on a clutch plate 68, as shown in
In the embodiment shown, the polyhedral member 66 has four facets and a cube-like shape. Accordingly, four stops are provided so that when the operator input lever 36 has its cylindrical tab 38 moved as shown in
The upper pusher arm 44 is biased by a spring 78 so that when it is released, the lever 36 returns to its initial position as shown in
Referring to
In operation, a hollow housing member 4 can be retracted from an elongated storage housing 14 and the spring biased elevator member 18 can be depressed against the pressure of the compression spring 24 so that a stack of candy tablets 12 can be loaded into the storage casing 14. The tablets 12 are biased upward away from the bottom of the cylindrical casing 16. The casing 16 further provides a frame for supporting a series of levers, disk and cam surfaces that are covered by the semi spherical-shaped cover 62. The cover 62 has a display window 64 and mounts a shutter member 58 that can cover the window 64 so that when the facets of the rotable member 66 are rotated by the operation of the operator input lever 36, the viewer will not see the rotation and the subsequent opening of the shutter 64, upon the return movement of the operator lever 36, but will view a new facet with different indicia on the rotable member surface having appropriate ornamental features, while at the same time a candy tablet 12 is discharged.
The preferred embodiment is disclosed in the form of a candy dispenser with ornamental indicia 80 such as various pictures of a kitten. Thus, a child will be pleasantly surprised as the child dispenses a candy tablet and sees different images of the kitten.
An alternative embodiment could have a molded rotable member 66 where each facet could have a three dimensional relief configuration of a face such as the kitten's face.
Another embodiment of the present invention could have text or words to provide different sayings each time the shutter 64 is opened.
An even further embodiment of the present invention could utilize a rotable member 66 with a large number of facets with a short saying written on each facet, written in a longitudinal direction to maximize the number of sayings such as “you're cute,” “can I have a date,” etc. for young adults with the dispensing of breath mints. The rotable member can do away with any clutching mechanism that provides a stepwise advancement of each facet of the rotable member and instead could have a random rotation with an operator lever randomly capturing one of the facets when released to open the shutter. The opening further could be an elongated slot with a plastic magnifying lens to enlarge the text message for viewing
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that various adaptations and modifications of the just-described preferred embodiment can be configured without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. Therefore, it is to be understood that, within the scope of the amended claims, the invention may be practiced other than as specifically described herein.
