ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,703,574, issued on Aug. 11, was assigned to BANDAI Co. LTD. (Tokyo).
"Article supply device" was invented by Hajime Kondo (Tokyo), Tatsushi Ikarashi (Tokyo), Hiroki Kobayashi (Tokyo) and Nobuo Kurokawa (Tokyo).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An article supply device capable of supplying first and second type articles comprises a main body, an accommodation unit for accommodating articles, a supply unit for supplying articles accommodated in the accommodation unit, a lock unit which prevents articles from being supplied from the supply unit; and a detection unit capable of detecting the presence or absence of first type articles and the pre...