AN APPARATUS FOR DISPENSING FOOD AND BEVERAGES
20240298830 ยท 2024-09-12
Assignee
Inventors
Cpc classification
B65D83/04
PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
A47G19/22
HUMAN NECESSITIES
International classification
A47G19/32
HUMAN NECESSITIES
A47G19/22
HUMAN NECESSITIES
Abstract
A portable food container for dispensing food and beverages is provided. The food container comprise two chambers: a food chamber and a drink chamber, a lid, a handle. The food chamber and the drink chambers are joined through a screw or magnet in a horizontal, vertical direction or are separate. The lid is on the top of the container, where the user can open it upwardly by pressing a lever. The food chamber holds staked food items in the form of patties, fritters, or sushi. The food chamber includes a food eject mechanism to eject the food from the food chamber. The spring-loaded mechanism has two springs, one is placed at the bottom of the staked food to push the food in an upward direction and the second spring is located below the lid, which releases through the lever to push or eject the food directly towards the user.
Claims
1. A portable apparatus for dispensing food, said apparatus comprising: an external casing and an internal container having an outer shell/layer and an inner shell/layer, the internal container is positioned inside the external casing and is removable characterized by a baseplate in the inner shell/layer of the internal container to place food fritters; wherein a first spring connects the baseplate with the inner shell/layer of the internal container; wherein a handle is provided on the external casing to hold the apparatus, said handle has a lever; Wherein a lid is provided to cover the apparatus, the lid is an extension to the external casing; Wherein the lever when pressed, release the food from the apparatus directly toward the user or at an elevation towards a user.
2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the shape of the apparatus is cubicle, cylindrical or geometrical.
3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the internal container is provided with a heating element to heat food using a power adaptor.
4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the heating element is in form of heating grills that surrounds the internal container.
5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus further comprises a display screen to display the food information and advertisements.
6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the lever can be straight or bend like a reverse L-shape to hold comfortably and can be easily pushed or pressed.
7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the lever is in shape of a button which on pushing activates the first spring and the second spring
8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the lid is coupled to the external casing through a hinge.
9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein when the lever is pressed, the first spring pushes the food fritter/pattie to pop the food fritter towards a user from top of the lid.
10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein a second spring attached to the lid to connect the lid with the lever and when the lever is pressed, the second spring opens the lid and pushes the food towards the user.
11. The apparatus of claims 9 and 10, wherein the apparatus can release the food directly towards the user or at an elevation towards the user either alone or in combination.
12. A portable apparatus for dispensing food and beverages, said apparatus comprising: an external casing and first internal container having an outer shell/layer and an inner shell/layer, the internal container is positioned inside the external casing and is removable; characterized by a second internal container that stores and dispense a beverage; a baseplate in the inner shell/layer of the first internal container to place food fritters; wherein a first spring connects the baseplate with the inner shell/layer of the first internal container; wherein a handle is provided on the external casing to hold the apparatus, said handle is provided with a lever; wherein a lid is provided to cover the apparatus, the lid is an extension to the external casing; wherein the lever when pressed, the first spring pushes the food fritters to pop the food fritters towards a user.
13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the shape of the apparatus is cubicle, cylindrical or geometrical.
14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the first internal container and the second internal container are stacked vertically.
15. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the first internal container and the second internal container are stacked horizontally.
16. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the first internal container and the second internal container are conjoined or separable.
17. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the first internal container is provided with a heating element to heat food and drink using a power adaptor.
18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the heating element is in form of heating grills that surrounds the internal container.
19. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the second internal container storing beverage has an extension straw concealed between the external casing and the internal container that can be retrieved by the user to drink the beverage, said extension straw has a cap tightly attached with the tip of the extension straw that is used for inserting a straw.
20. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the apparatus further comprises a display screen to display the food information and advertisements.
21. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the lever is in shape of a button which on pushing activates the first spring and the second spring
22. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the lid is coupled to the external casing through a hinge.
23. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein a second spring attached to the lid to connect the lid with the lever and when the lever is pressed, the second spring opens the lid and pushes the food towards the user.
24. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the apparatus is disposable that comes with sealed container for food and beverage, said sealed container is single shell or dual shell.
25. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the apparatus is non-disposable that can be re-filled with food and beverage cartridge.
26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the reseller of shops provides the food cartridge in form of patty, fritter, croquettes, cakes or in any other form and shape, and the user can buy and fill the non-disposable cartridge in the apparatus.
27. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein a plurality of foods and stacks is mixed to maintain hygiene and nutrition level and home kits are provided for preparing food in patty/fritter format.
28. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the apparatus comprises a trigger mechanism to release the fritters/patties.
29. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the apparatus comprises a plurality of food and drink chambers, the apparatus having a revolving cap with a lever to select food chamber and push the food towards user.
Description
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
[0011] The skilled artisan will understand that the drawings primarily are for illustrative purposes and are not intended to limit the scope of the inventive subject matter described herein. The drawings are not necessarily to scale; in some instances, various aspects of the inventive subject matter disclosed herein may be shown exaggerated or enlarged in the drawings to facilitate an understanding of different features. In the drawings:
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DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0026] In the following detailed description of embodiments of the invention, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments of invention. However, it will be obvious to a person skilled in art that the embodiments of invention may be practiced with or without these specific details. In other instances well known methods, procedures and components have not been described in detail, so as not to unnecessarily obscure aspects of the embodiments of the invention.
[0027] The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the term and/or includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items. As used herein, the singular forms a, an, and the are intended to include the plural forms as well as the singular forms, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.
[0028] It will be further understood that the terms comprises and/or comprising, when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.
[0029] Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one having ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art and the present disclosure and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.
[0030] In describing the invention, it will be understood that a number of techniques and steps are disclosed. Each of these has individual benefit and each can also be used in conjunction with one or more, or in some cases all, of the other disclosed techniques. Accordingly, for the sake of clarity, this description will refrain from repeating every possible combination of the individual steps in an unnecessary fashion. Nevertheless, the specification and claims should be read with the understanding that such combinations are entirely within the scope of the invention and the claims.
[0031] In an embodiment of present invention, a portable hand-held apparatus for dispensing food is provided. The apparatus comprising: an external casing and an internal container having an outer shell/layer and an inner shell/layer. The internal container is placed inside the external casing. The internal container can be removed to fill the food cartridge. The internal container has a baseplate in the inner shell/layer of the internal container to place food fritters, patties. A spring is connected to the baseplate with the inner shell/layer of the internal container. A handle is provided on the external casing to hold the apparatus comfortably. The handle is provided with a lever. The apparatus has a lid to cover the apparatus, wherein the lid is an extension to the external casing. The lid prevent the food stored inside the food chamber from exposure to the external environment to prevent decay of food. The lever provided in the handle when pressed, the first spring pushes the food fritters or patties to pop it towards the user. The lever provided in the handle can be any user convenient shape, such as lever can be straight or bend like a reverse L-shape, or T-shape button or a spring button, so that the user can hold the apparatus comfortably and lever can easily be pushed or pressed. In some embodiment, the lever can be in shape of button that when pushed activates the spring. The lid of the apparatus may have a second spring attached to it that connects with the lever. When the lever is pressed, the second spring open the lid and pushes the food towards the user.
[0032] The external casing and internal container of the apparatus can be preferably made of transparent material to view the inside content or it can be made of opaque material. The material such as plastic, glass, light metal like aluminum or tin can be used for external casing and the internal container.
[0033] The food is sliced into small round circular or semi-circular patties preferably if the system is round shape, and it also can be made into any shape, for example square type, and patties are looks like middle of burger round cooked Pattie size. The food can be processed food or raw food.
[0034] This apparatus has external casing, and inside the external casing, food is placed into small round internal container. Either it's hollow with supporting 3 or more spokes or vertically supporting pillar type
[0035] The base of the internal container has spring, when food is placed on top of the spring, compressed spring stores elastic potential energy, and when spring expands it is released as kinetic energy.
[0036] The apparatus can be hold like a coffee cup with handle and lid, so there is a hand button or lever type mechanism near thumb. When the lever is pressed, it releases incrementally one Pattie at a time towards upward and at same time above container lid will open automatically. The lid prevent the food stored inside the food chamber from exposure to the external environment to prevent decay of food.
[0037] When button or lever is pressed or pulled, top of the container lid will open, and at the same time, the compressed spring stores elastic potential energy released as kinetic energy when it expands. Kinetic energy in spring releases and pushed Pattie or patties to upward, and top of the food circular/cylindrical Pattie will freed and pop up when the container lid opens upward, so that user can pick through mouth without touching food.
[0038] In some embodiment, there is spring loaded at the hand lever to push the patty directly pointing towards user mouth to eat.
[0039] Pressing the lever down or towards container handle can release one Pattie at a time, and then once close the lid by pressing lever upwards or away from container handle so that spring loaded mechanism will be active for subsequent release or next release.
[0040] In another embodiment of present invention, a portable hand-held apparatus for dispensing food fritters and a beverage is provided. The apparatus comprises two chambers placed in an external casing. The first chamber is the food chamber that is used to store food item that need to be dispensed. The food item can be in form of patties, fritters, cake, cutlet, croquettes etc. The second chamber is the drink chamber that stores a beverage for drink. The external casing has a lid to cover the top. The lid prevent the food stored inside the food chamber from exposure to the external environment to prevent decay of food. The first chamber and the second chamber are separate or are joined together through a screw or magnet in a vertical direction.
[0041] In the apparatus, the food chamber can be stacked multiple types of fritters/patties in order to meet nutritional requirement of the body and to avoid boredom of food or repetitive same food.
[0042] In an embodiment, the apparatus can be in form of reusable apparatus, wherein the food chamber and the drink chamber can be refiled or it can be a disposable apparatus. In case of disposable apparatus, the food container and the drink container are in-built by providing provisions for different chamber in the external casing.
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[0045] Referring to
[0046] In an embodiment of present invention, the apparatus can be in shape of cylindrical, rectangular, cubical, and polygonal or any other geometrical shape. The apparatus has a handle to hold the apparatus comfortably by the user. A lever is provided in the handle of the apparatus. The lid is placed at the top of the container, where the user can open it upwardly by pressing a lever.
[0047] The food chamber holds staked food items in the form of patties, cakes, or sushi. The apparatus includes a food eject mechanism to push or eject the food from the food chamber. The food eject mechanism can be a spring-loaded based mechanism or a non-spring-loaded based mechanism.
[0048] The spring-loaded mechanism utilizes two springs. The first spring is placed at the bottom of the first chamber, i.e. food chamber, below the staked food to push the food in an upward direction. The second spring is located below the lid to push or eject the food towards the user through the lever.
[0049] In the non-spring-loaded mechanism, the staked food is placed on top of a baseplate in the first container. The baseplate is connected to the lever or handle. When a user presses the lever, the food is pushed upward towards the opening provided in the apparatus through the slide mechanism. The lever lifts the baseplate upward such that the staked food on the baseplate movers upward towards the opening on the apparatus.
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[0051] The staked food can be released in two ways. In the first type, the staked food is directly released from the top of the apparatus. In this method, the lever is connected to the lid and when the lever is pressed it opens the lid to release the staked food. In second type, the apparatus has a horizontal slit hole with a size of slightly bigger than Pattie or fritter size at the front of the external casing opposite to the lever. When the user presses the lever button, the slit hole gets opened to release the staked food. Both the food releasing methods can be used either alone or jointly depending on the embodiments.
[0052] In an embodiment of present invention, the food container and the drink container are separate or joined. The fixing of the food container and the drink container is carried out by any fix mechanism, such as screw fix or magnet type quick fix or fix through slot and turn to sit firmly.
[0053] Referring to
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[0057] Referring to
[0058] In an embodiment of present invention, the apparatus comprises multiple food chamber and multiple drink chambers arranged in any possible configuration to provide user an option with multiple food and multiple drinks.
[0059] In an embodiment of present invention, the lever of the apparatus for dispensing food and drinks can be provided as a separate accessory instead of providing it as in-built unit to the apparatus. The lever can provided as an attachment with a plastic string to the apparatus or by sticking with sticker. The user has to simply screw the lever into the holes behind the spring before pressing. Providing lever as an attachment is useful in avoiding packaging and other issues due to lengthy lever.
[0060]
[0061] In another embodiment of present invention, the apparatus has a hole at near to the base which is connected to extendable straw running adjacent to the container having drink. The user can pull the straw and drink the content. The extendable straw is leak proof, easy to open and is located close to the drink and food separator and outer surface. The straw can be a leak proof short straw with closed cap at the tip attached with a plastic string. The straw is flexible to put and extends parallel to the container surface. When needed, user can open straw by pulling it up and open the cap to drink. After drinking, the user can put back the cap to prevent leaking. Alternatively, the straw is a long solid straw with some sight gap at the base to fill the container top lid, which is connected to the extendable straw running adjacent to the container. The user can pull and drink the content and after use, stick back to the container.
[0062] In another embodiment, the apparatus contains heating element at the base of the food container. The heating element can be used to heat the food by using external power adaptor. Alternatively heating element can be in form of a grill that surrounds the internal container and heat up the patties/fritters stored inside the internal container uniformly and evenly in a quick time. The provision of two casings or layers (inner and outer layer) enable a user to hold the apparatus comfortably even though the inside food is too hot or cold.
[0063] In another embodiment of present invention, the external casing of the apparatus can further be provided with a display screen. The display screen is wrapped around the whole apparatus or over some area of the apparatus. The display screen comprises a memory unit to store program or digital content and is configured to display the digital content (e.g., image, text, video, audio, etc.). The display screen allows the companies to display their food or other advertisements to attract customers or merchandise. The flexible display screen can be reusable or disposable.
[0064] In some aspects, the apparatus of present invention can be used as a disposable container that comes with food and drink sealed container and also comes with even single or dual layer. After use, the user can dispose the apparatus.
[0065] In other aspects, the apparatus of present invention can be used as a non-disposable container. The user can buy the empty apparatus separately and can buy the food cartridges from shops or resellers. The non-disposable apparatus can be provided with various accessories like portable heating element or adapter to put the container to heat certain level from frozen state. The reseller or shops can provide the food cartridge in form of patty, fritter, croquettes, and cakes or in any other from and shape. The user can buy and fill the non-disposable cartridges in the apparatus. To maintain hygiene and nutrition level, the reseller can mix various foods and snacks. The Food needs to be prepared in solid form to suit this container. Separate Home kits can be developed for preparing food in patty/fritter format. The drink container can be refilled with various options, such as coffee, tea, milk juices etc.
[0066] The food patties/fritters can be prepared with holes in them so as to prevent choking in users, when the user try to aim food patties/fritters directly into the mouth.
[0067] The present invention provides various technical advantages and economic significance over the conventional technology. The apparatus of the present invention is easy carry, hold, eat and drink even when the user is mobile. The various food items can be easily stacked in form of patties, fritters, cake, and croquette according to user's interest or to maintain nutritional values for avoiding eating same thing regularly. The content in apparatus is easy to freeze and heat up. The apparatus can be used to dispense food and drink easily without fear of spilling and fragmenting. The transparent container allows a user to see the food content of the apparatus.
[0068] The apparatus provides provision to add water, juice, tea, coffee or any other drinks. Furthermore, the apparatus can be used to add processed fruits, vegetables, medicines by processing them into required shape.
[0069] The apparatus can easily be sold through vending machines. The apparatus can be a single use apparatus where the used one can be discarded, or it can be reusable that can be used after every cycle. Business eco system can be built, so that readymade patties companies can used the eco system.
[0070] For additional details relating to the present invention, materials and manufacturing techniques of the level of ordinary skill in the art can be used. The same may be true for aspects based on the method of the present invention with respect to additional actions commonly or logically used.
[0071] Also, optional features of the described variations of the invention can be described and claimed independently or in combination with any one or more of the features described herein. Similarly, a reference to a singular element includes the possibility that there are pluralities of the same element. More specifically, the singular form (a, and, said, and the) is not expressly required by the context as used herein and in the appended claims. As long as it includes a plurality of instructions. It is further noted that the claims may be drafted to exclude optional elements.
[0072] Therefore, this statement should serve as a preceding basis for the use of exclusive terms such as simply, only, etc. or negative limitation in connection with the description of the elements of the claims is intended. Unless defined otherwise herein, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. The scope of the invention is not limited by this specification, but only by the plain meaning of the terms used in the claims.