US 5,702,032 AGranted

Beverage dispensing system with bottle identification rings

AssigneeDEC International, Inc.

InventorJohn M. Loehrke

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Abstract

Each open liquor bottle in a tavern has a plastic spout with a magnetically operable valve to control the flow of liquor from the bottle. The spouts were fabricated with three integral rings extending around the spout with each ring being either plastic or metal to form a pattern that encodes information identifying a characteristic of the bottle. An annular actuator reads the pattern of rings and responds by producing a magnetic field that opens the spout valve to dispense the liquor. Three rings allow up to eight different classes of characteristics to be encoded. To increase that number of classes a supplemental metal ring is attached around some of the spout adjacent to one end of the actuator when the spout is inserted therein. The actuator is modified to sense presence of the supplemental metal ring on a spout. Adding another ring to certain spouts permits the number of classes of characteristics to be doubled without requiring replacement of existing spouts in a tavern.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A liquid dispensing system comprising:

a spout with an attachment portion to engage a liquid container, a cylindrical portion extending along a first axis from the attachment portion, an external flange where the cylindrical portion extends from the attachment portion, and a flow passage controlled by a magnetically operable valve in the cylindrical portion;
a given plurality of rings attached around and spaced axially along the cylindrical portion of said spout, wherein magnetic properties of the rings define a code which classifies contents of the liquid container;
a supplemental ring of a magnetic material attached to the flange on an exterior of said spout, said supplemental ring further defining the code;
an actuator having an annular shape with a second axis and an aperture within which to detachably receive the cylindrical portion of said spout, said actuator including a given plurality of sensing coils wound around the aperture and spaced along the second axis, and including a valve coil wound around the aperture to produce a magnetic field which opens the magnetically operable valve, said actuator further having a supplemental sensing coil located to detect presence of a supplemental ring when said spout is received in the aperture;
and
a controller connected to the given plurality of sensing coils and the supplemental sensing coil to read the code from the spout and energize the valve coil to open the valve.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.