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AssigneeThe Secretary of State for Social Services in Her Britannic Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
InventorsAnn Margaret Peters, Geoffrey Stuart Greaves, Ian Robert Clark, Roger Leonard Holder, Roger Abraham Bunce
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The invention relates to a vial located in a pocket in a carrier. The pocket has an upwardly opening inlet and a plane, bottom cam surface the vial has a complementary, plane, bottom cam surface. Both cam surfaces are inclined to the axes of the vial and pocket so that on lowering the vial into the pocket through its inlet, the cam surfaces interact so that when the vial is fully home in the pocket, it occupies a predetermined position of angular displacement about the vial axis. The carrier may be in the form of a turntable having a plurality of such pockets around the peripheral region of the turntable. The pockets may open outwardly from the center of the turntable through the peripheral surface of the turntable so that labels fixed and appropriately positioned on the vial walls are visible through the openings in the peripheral surface when the vials are fully home in their pockets.
A combination comprising a carrier and self-locating container, said carrier including at least one container receiving pocket, said pocket having an inlet with a cross-section to receive a container in any angular displacement about the pocket axis and an internal, plane cam surface located opposite to said opening, said cam surface being inclined at an acute angle to the pocket axis for angular aligning during positioning within said pocket a container having a complementary cam surface, and a container having a cam surface complementary to the cam surface of said pocket, whereby said container is aligned in a predetermined angular displacement by and with respect to the cam surface of the pocket during positioning within said carrier pocket.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.