Appeal No. 1999-1780
Application No. 08/651,630
and pick up processed orders using a general purpose,
undedicated credit card.
A retrieval device upon appropriate command retrieves
a customer’s processed order and brings it to a
customer interface panel door [28], which opens to
enable the customer to pick up his processed order.
Included in the customer interface panel are a card
reader [16] for reading the customer’s credit card, a
display [20] for presenting information and
instructions to the customer, a menu of services [30]
for selection by the customer and a keyboard [32] or
other input device to select desired services. A
printer [46] is included for printing a receipt and/or
a transaction record. The system includes a computer
[56, 58] at each remote machine facility outlet for
handling functions associated with the credit card
reader, instructing the retrieval device to retrieve
orders, for operating a display, for handling the
customer input device, and for creating a transaction
record. The general purpose computer can also provide
for networking between the central plant [50] and a
larger number of remote automated customer interface
facilities, and a telephone, modem and auto dialer
preferably are included at each automated facility for
computer communication with the central plant.
Independent claim 28
Independent claim 28 is directed to an item processing
kiosk comprising, inter alia,
customer identifying means for identifying a customer in
response to data supplied directly by the customer;
item identifying means for identifying an item from a
database based upon the identification of the customer
by the customer identifying means, wherein the item is
to be picked up by the customer; [and]
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