US20070051072A1

US20070051072A1 - Pills on tape and reel

Info

Publication number: US20070051072A1
Application number: US11/219,387
Authority: US
Inventors: Joseph Lai
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2005-09-06
Filing date: 2005-09-06
Publication date: 2007-03-08

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.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is related to a new package of storing pills for automation of pill handling and dispensing systems.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Why is this invention necessary?
The Problem
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:

- 1. Extremely difficult for either human or machine to read, handle, count, dispense and transport
- 2. Pills are easily damaged by either pharmacist/lab technician or current automated dispensing systems
- 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:
  - a. Instruction
  - b. Drug name
  - c. Dosage
  - d. Expiration date
  - e. Serial number or lot number
  - f. Patient schedules
- 4. Pills packaged in the bottles are specially easily contaminated by:
  - a. Human that handles it
  - b. Dust, virus, germs, fungi and more
  - c. Moisture
  - d. Cross contaminations; other pills dispensed by the same automated dispensing machine; i.e. the pill might contain harmful traces of other pills
- 5. Expensive package, pills are packaged in easy to identify packages such as blister packs are very expensive compare to bulk package.
- 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

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

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

FIG. 1. Shows the pill and the top view of carrier tape with feeding gear holes and embossed square pits for storing pills
FIG. 2. Shows the side view of carrier tape with embossed pits and pills in it
FIG. 3. Shows the blank cover tape
FIG. 4. Shows the cover tape with marked information on top of the tape
FIG. 5. Shows the cover tape with marked information on the carrier tape with pills inside
FIG. 6. Shows the reel that holds the tape with pills
FIG. 7. Shows feeder, counter and cutter are used to feed, count and dispense the pills
FIG. 8. Shows dispensed pills on tape and ready for user to take

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

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.
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:

- 1. Extremely low cost;
  - 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.
  - 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.
  - 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.
  - d. The automated system will be much smaller than conventional robotic systems, save a lot of valuable space would save tremendous money.
- 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.
- 3. Very accurate; pills on tape system is specially accurate for small pills:
  - 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.
  - 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.
  - c. Marked information with serial number can also be useful for verify counting process thus makes pill on tape system more accurate.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.

Our Comparison Chart:



		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

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.
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.
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.
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.
At pharmaceutical/nutraceutical packaging location:

- a. Drug/pill name
- b. Dosage
- c. Manufacturing date code
- d. Expiration date code
- e. Lot number/Serial number
- f. Barcode for all the above information

At pharmacy location:

- a. Special instructions
- b. Schedule of use, when to take the pill information (once a day, twice a day . . . )
- c. Doctor's name with phone number
- d. User's name
- e. Barcode for all the above information

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.
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.
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.
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.
FIG. 8 shows the dispensed pills on the tape. Simply remove the cover tape to take the pill.
Conclusions:
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.

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.