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AssigneeMerck & Co., Inc.
InventorsNicholas J. Sleep, Andrew H. Proudfoot, Stephen Owen, Adrian Neil Bargh, Michael Kennedy
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An automated packaging line for filling large and small orders, of one or more bottles, each bottle filled with a respective one of a plurality of different pharmaceutical tablets, in a single run. An intelligent data carrying puck carries each bottle, including therein information describing, among others, the bottle, the customer, the order, the pharmaceutical, the bottle size and label information. Puck handling stations (PHS) are dispersed throughout the line, to verify a number of operations implemented on the line and to reject a puck at the earliest opportunity, while permitting subsequent rejection by a subsequent PHS. The PHS units are substantially identical, with DIP switch modifying operation of the controlling software thereof to implement different features at different points on the line.
In an automated container filling system, including a container input station and a container filling station, the improvement comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.