Personal medication dispenser
First Claim
1. A pill dispenser for dispensing a dose of pill medication, comprising:
- at least one chamber for holding a supply of like, loose and randomly oriented pills in bulk, and including a bottom portion having a chamber opening sized for accepting a randomly oriented pill;
a feed mechanism associated with each said chamber and operable selectively to incrementally feed a number of said randomly oriented pills from said respective chamber opening; and
a programmable controller coupled to control said feed mechanism, wherein said controller has a timer, a memory and an input means, wherein said controller is operable programmably to preset at least one of a time and a number of pills to be dispensed from each said chamber, and to operate said feed mechanism to feed pills from each said chamber at said preset time and number.
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0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An automated personal pill dispenser has one or more chambers for holding a supply of pills. A feed mechanism is associated with each chamber and is selectively operable to dispense an incremental number of pills from each respective chamber. A programmable controller is coupled to control and operate the feed mechanism. The controller has a timer, a memory and an input means and is programmably operable by the user and/or by remote input from a smart card, PDA or various networks such as one having access to data from a pharmacy. The programming presets at least one of a time and a number of pills to be dispensed from each chamber. The controller operates an alarm to alert the user and operates the feed mechanism to dispense pills at the preset time and number, also detecting the user'"'"'s access to obtain the dispensed pills.
23 Citations
17 Claims
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1. A pill dispenser for dispensing a dose of pill medication, comprising:
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at least one chamber for holding a supply of like, loose and randomly oriented pills in bulk, and including a bottom portion having a chamber opening sized for accepting a randomly oriented pill;
a feed mechanism associated with each said chamber and operable selectively to incrementally feed a number of said randomly oriented pills from said respective chamber opening; and
a programmable controller coupled to control said feed mechanism, wherein said controller has a timer, a memory and an input means, wherein said controller is operable programmably to preset at least one of a time and a number of pills to be dispensed from each said chamber, and to operate said feed mechanism to feed pills from each said chamber at said preset time and number. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A pill dispenser for dispensing a dose of pill medication, comprising:
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at least one chamber holding a supply of like, loose and randomly oriented pills in bulk, and including a bottom portion having a chamber opening sized for accepting a randomly oriented pill;
programmable means for producing a dose signal and a timing signal; and
a dispensing system responsive to said programmable means for selectively and incrementally dispensing from each said chamber said dose determined by said dose signal at a time determined by said timing signal. - View Dependent Claims (15)
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16. A pill dispenser, comprising:
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at least one chamber for holding a supply of pills;
a feed mechanism associated with each said chamber operable selectively to feed an incremental number of pills from each said chamber;
a programmable controller coupled to control said feed mechanism, wherein said controller has a timer, a memory and an input means, wherein said controller is operable programmably to preset at least one of a time and a number of pills to be dispensed from each said chamber and to operate said feed mechanism to feed pills from said chamber at said preset time and number; and
an interface coupled to said controller for programming data including at least one of a pill identity, a user identity, a dosage schedule and a special instruction, and wherein each of said data can be different for respective chambers of said at least one chamber.
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17. A pill dispenser for dispensing a dose of pill medication, comprising:
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at least one chamber holding a supply of like, loose and randomly oriented pills in bulk and having a bottom portion with a chamber opening sized for accepting a randomly oriented pill;
a feed mechanism associated with each said chamber operable selectively to downwardly dispense a number of said randomly oriented pills from each said respective chamber opening; and
a programmable controller coupled to control said feed mechanism, wherein said controller has a timer, a memory and an input means, wherein said controller is operable programmably to preset at least one of a time and a number of pills to be dispensed from each said chamber, and to operate said feed mechanism to feed pills from each said chamber at said preset time and number.
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Specification