U.S. patent application number 11/219387 was filed with the patent office on 2007-03-08 for pills on tape and reel.
Invention is credited to Joseph Lai.
Application Number | 20070051072 11/219387 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 37828784 |
Filed Date | 2007-03-08 |
United States Patent
Application |
20070051072 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Lai; Joseph |
March 8, 2007 |
Pills on tape and reel
Abstract
This present invention is for a new method of packaging for
automated and manually pill processing. Pills are packaged inside
of embossed pockets on a carrier tape then sealed with a cover
tape. Packaged pills with information marked tapes then rolled onto
a reel for fast, easy, clean, reliable, accurate, low-cost and
automated ways of transporting, handling, counting/accounting,
dispensing, storing, identifying, scheduling and protecting
purposes.
Inventors: |
Lai; Joseph; (San Pedro,
CA) |
Correspondence
Address: |
JOSEPH LAI
950 SAMPSON WAY #108
SAN PEDRO
CA
90731
US
|
Family ID: |
37828784 |
Appl. No.: |
11/219387 |
Filed: |
September 6, 2005 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
53/411 ; 53/430;
53/453; 53/471; 53/591 |
Current CPC
Class: |
B65B 63/04 20130101;
B65B 9/045 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
053/411 ;
053/430; 053/471; 053/591; 053/453 |
International
Class: |
B65B 63/04 20060101
B65B063/04; B65B 7/28 20060101 B65B007/28 |
Claims
1. A new fast, easy, clean, reliable, accurate, informative and
low-cost method of packaging and dispensing pills for automated
ways of transporting, handling, counting, dispensing, storing,
identifying, reminding and protecting of said pills, comprising
steps of: a. placing said pills inside embossed storage pits on a
carrier tape, b. marking information regarding said pills onto a
cover tape and said carrier tape, c. placing said cover tape on top
of said carrier tape with said pills in said embossed storage pits,
d. sealing means to attach said cover tape on top of said carrier
tape becoming a sealed tape with said pills inside, e. rolling said
sealed tapes onto a reel, Whereby said pills are packaged in said
sealed tape and reel for said fast, easy, clean, reliable, accurate
and low-cost automation.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein said pills are for medicine,
drug, food and food supplement for human, plant and/or animal.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein said seal means is said cover
tape that is heat sealed or pressure adhere onto said carrier tape
with said pills inside said embossed storage pits.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein said carrier tape, cover tape and
reel are made of low-cost, contamination-free, non-toxic,
recyclable and disposable material contains paper or plastic.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein said packaged tape with said
pills is counted and dispensed by an automated feeder, counter and
cutter.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein said packaged tape with said
pills contains visible counting marks or feeding gear holes for
said feeders and counters to recognize to feed and count fast and
accurately.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein said feed and counted tape with
said pills is cut by said cutter to separate and dispense from the
said packaged tape.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein said cover tape and carrier tape
are marked with said information to identify said pills contains
brand, name, dosage, manufacturing date code, expiration date code,
serial number, lot number and personal instructions for said
pills.
10. The method of claim 1, wherein said marked information
instructions contains time and date reminder to help pill users to
remember to take said pills.
Description
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The present invention is related to a new package of storing
pills for automation of pill handling and dispensing systems.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] Why is this invention necessary?
The Problem
[0003] The conventional pills for medication or food supplement are
packaged bulk or stored inside of either pill bottles/vials or
blister pockets made of plastic, paper, glass or metal. These old
fashion packaged pills are problematic for today's needs: [0004] 1.
Extremely difficult for either human or machine to read, handle,
count, dispense and transport [0005] 2. Pills are easily damaged by
either pharmacist/lab technician or current automated dispensing
systems [0006] 3. Difficult to identify pills, lots pills are
looked identical, once pills are dispensed to a bottle by either
automated machine or human, there is no easy way to verify errors.
It is very easy to make harmful mistakes because lack of
information associated with the pill such as: [0007] a. Instruction
[0008] b. Drug name [0009] c. Dosage [0010] d. Expiration date
[0011] e. Serial number or lot number [0012] f. Patient schedules
[0013] 4. Pills packaged in the bottles are specially easily
contaminated by: [0014] a. Human that handles it [0015] b. Dust,
virus, germs, fungi and more [0016] c. Moisture [0017] d. Cross
contaminations; other pills dispensed by the same automated
dispensing machine; i.e. the pill might contain harmful traces of
other pills [0018] 5. Expensive package, pills are packaged in easy
to identify packages such as blister packs are very expensive
compare to bulk package. [0019] 6. Expensive automated pill
dispensing equipment; Automated robotics dispensing machines do
exist, these huge, expensive, complicate, unreliable, and slow
machines dispense pills from bulk packaged bottles/bins to user's
bottle is definitely not the solution for today's needs of
automated dispensing. The Solution
[0020] The present invention is directed to provide such a solution
with a new package which packages each individual pill on a "Tape
and Reel". The present invention will solve all the above problems
in today's pill dispensing and packaging industry.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0021] The presented invention is a new package for the pills
consists of a carrier tape, a cover tape with marked information
and a reel. The carrier tape contains an array of embossed pockets
or pits for store pills inside. The cover tape covers the pockets
with pills and is marked with useful information regarding the
pills. Packaged pills on tape then rolled inside of a reel for easy
transporting, counting, dispensing, handling, counting, storing,
identifying, scheduling and protecting purposes.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0022] FIG. 1. Shows the pill and the top view of carrier tape with
feeding gear holes and embossed square pits for storing pills
[0023] FIG. 2. Shows the side view of carrier tape with embossed
pits and pills in it
[0024] FIG. 3. Shows the blank cover tape
[0025] FIG. 4. Shows the cover tape with marked information on top
of the tape
[0026] FIG. 5. Shows the cover tape with marked information on the
carrier tape with pills inside
[0027] FIG. 6. Shows the reel that holds the tape with pills
[0028] FIG. 7. Shows feeder, counter and cutter are used to feed,
count and dispense the pills
[0029] FIG. 8. Shows dispensed pills on tape and ready for user to
take
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0030] The present invention consists of tape carrier with embossed
storage pockets, cover tape and reel working as new package for
pills. Package pills on tape and reel can be handled by a feeder
for manual or automated counting and dispensing pills to pill
users.
[0031] Tape and reel with feeding mechanism systems are very common
in today's electronics assembly industry. The electronics assembly
industry has spent its last 20 years of research in finding the
best way of package components for automated assembly and they have
found it. The modern assembly industry has developed a Surface
Mount Technology (SMT) for low cost, small foot-print and accurate
ways of pick and place of components stored on tape and reel onto
the printed circuit board. This technology for storing, feeding and
pick/place the components has many advantages over the conventional
electronic components handlings. Pills are very similar to
electronics components, should also be packaged and stored onto
tape and reel for easy automation. Pills on Tape and Reel is a
bi-product of the electronics SMT assembly technology, consider
these fantastic results: [0032] 1. Extremely low cost; [0033] a.
Put pills on tape and reel is a proven technology and it is much
simpler than design a complicated robotic system to simulate human
hands movement of dispensing pills. [0034] b. The tape and reel
technology exist from the electronics assembly, therefore, there is
no need to re-engineer the complicated process and equipment of
making the carrier tape, cover tape and reel. [0035] c. The tape
and reel feeding technology exist too. We can simply employ the
feeders which are popularly manufactured for electronics components
to be used as feeding mechanism to our pills on the tape and reel.
[0036] d. The automated system will be much smaller than
conventional robotic systems, save a lot of valuable space would
save tremendous money. [0037] 2. Fast; put pills on tape with
feeders is the fastest way of dispense pills. No moving arms, no
pickup head and all feeders can work independently and
simultaneously. [0038] 3. Very accurate; pills on tape system is
specially accurate for small pills: [0039] a. No more guess work,
no weight measurement and calculation for quantity, no mistake, no
need complicated way of counting, feeding and dispensing. Unlike
the best robotics pill dispensing system today, our pills on the
tape and reel system will deliver 100% of accuracy of dispensing.
[0040] b. Loaded tape and reel with pills can be programmed with
identification information such as barcode or RFID to avoid
mistakes such as put wrong tape on the wrong feeder. [0041] c.
Marked information with serial number can also be useful for verify
counting process thus makes pill on tape system more accurate.
[0042] 4. Reliabilities; automated pill dispensing machine with
pills on Tape and Reel deliver the best reliability. Simplicity
makes the new package system much reliable. Pills on tape system
has the least of moving parts makes it much less chance of
malfunction or break down. No damaged pills and no complicated
moving parts to fail. Also, since the pills on tape and reel system
is designed based on a distributed independent system, in case of
feeder malfunction, system could easily work around and isolate the
troubled feeders and still maintain operation, unlike current
centralized automated dispensing systems have to shut down
completely. Of course, it is easy to trouble shot the pills on tape
systems by either repair or replace those troubled feeders. [0043]
5. Expandability; Pills on tape and reel system has the best
capability for its expandability. It is a modular, feeder based
design, so simply put, smaller system has fewer feeders, for larger
system? Simply add feeders. [0044] 6. Very clean and
environmentally safe, no contaminations from human error or cross
contamination from another harmful trace of pills handled by the
old fashion pill robots. Every pill is protected in a low cost
blister pack on tape and reel. [0045] 7. Very informative and FAIL
SAFE; packaged pills on tape and reel provides extra spaces for
marking or printing important information onto the tape of pill. In
the worst case scenario, for what ever reasons, wrong pills are
dispensed . . . the user or his/her caregiver may still have the
last chance to verify before he or she takes it. The current human
or robotic system are very scary for dispensing bulk packages which
provide no information at all to identify or verify the pill that
dispensed is right or wrong. [0046] 8. The easiest way for
inventory control; put pills on tape and reel makes inventory
control easy as well as all the above features. Counting
un-dispensed pills are easy while they are all on tapes.
[0047] Our Comparison Chart: TABLE-US-00001 Current Robotic METHOD
VS. Pill on Tape & Reel bulk Pill Manually dispense PERFORMANCE
(PTR) Dispensing systems the Pills COST THE BEST THE WORST BAD
ACCURACY THE BEST NOT GOOD THE WORST RELIABILITY THE BEST NOT GOOD
THE WORST EXPANDBILITY THE BEST THE WORST BAD SPEED THE FASTEST NOT
THAT FAST VERY SLOW FAIL SAFE YES NO NO ENVIRONMENTAL/ THE BEST
BETTER THE WORST CONTAMINATION CONTROL IDENTIFICATION THE BEST NOT
EXIST NOT EXIST FOR PILL INVENTORY THE BEST NO CONTROL THE WORST
CONTROL
[0048] FIG. 1 is the carrier tape (101) that carries the pills
(102). Embossed carrier pits (103) on the carrier tape are custom
made to fit and store pills. Pits can have different sizes and
shapes to accommodate all pills. The optional feeder gear holes
(104) on the top side of the carrier tape are designed for the
feeder with gears to control the movement (move tape forward) of
the carrier tape.
[0049] FIG. 2 is the side view of the carrier tape with embossed
pits for store pills. The embossed pits can be deep to accommodate
larger pills. However, pills can not be so big that pill users can
not swallow it.
[0050] FIG. 3 is the blank cover tape. This tape is suggested made
of clear plastic so it would be easy for pill user to see through
the content and to mark the useful information regarding the pill
inside the tape carrier.
[0051] FIG. 4 is the cover tape with marked information on it.
Information are useful for identify the pill with name, dosage,
serial number, manufacturing date, expiration date and user
instructions. Information can be marked at both the pharmaceutical
packaging location and the pharmacy.
[0052] At pharmaceutical/nutraceutical packaging location: [0053]
a. Drug/pill name [0054] b. Dosage [0055] c. Manufacturing date
code [0056] d. Expiration date code [0057] e. Lot number/Serial
number [0058] f. Barcode for all the above information
[0059] At pharmacy location: [0060] a. Special instructions [0061]
b. Schedule of use, when to take the pill information (once a day,
twice a day . . . ) [0062] c. Doctor's name with phone number
[0063] d. User's name [0064] e. Barcode for all the above
information
[0065] FIG. 5 is the packaged pill on the carrier tape and sealed
with the cover tape. To seal the cover tape, either by heat seal or
pressure sensitive adhesive methods is recommended.
[0066] FIG. 6 is the reel that holds the packaged pill on carrier
tape with cover tape sealed on top. The pills with tape are rolled
on the reel for easy space saving storage. Pills inside the tape
601 are ready to dispense by either automated feeders or manually
cut to dispense.
[0067] FIG. 7 is the feeder for the pill on tape and reel. The
feeder holds the tape with mechanism to control the movement of the
tape. The reel hold by 701 for free running to feed the tape to a
movement mechanism 702, then count by a counting mechanism 703 to
delivery exact amount of pills feed by the feeding mechanism 702.
Counted tape with exact amount of pills then cut by a cutter 704 to
dispense to pill users.
[0068] Please note that all feeders are independently controlled by
a micro-computer. Multiple feeders can feed, count and cut packaged
pills on tape simultaneously. This is the fastest way of dispensing
multiple pills to one user. Unlike the most conventional robotic
dispensing system can only handle one pill at a time.
[0069] FIG. 8 shows the dispensed pills on the tape. Simply remove
the cover tape to take the pill.
Conclusions:
[0070] Package pills in tape and reel (and handled by automated
feeders) not only simplifying the way of error free, fast, accurate
automating pills dispensing but also add safety features to the
pills. Pills are now stored in a clean, contamination free
environment with useful information marked on the cover tape and
carrier tape. The present invention solves many problems of today's
pill dispensing problems.
* * * * *