ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,329,310, issued on June 17, was assigned to Societe des Produits Nestle S.A. (Vevey, Switzerland).
"Beverage preparation machine with capsule recognition" was invented by Martino Ruggiero (Lonay, Switzerland) and Szabolcs Balasi (Chavannes-pres-Renens, Switzerland).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Machine for preparing and dispensing a beverage, such as tea, coffee, hot chocolate, cold chocolate, milk, soup or baby food, comprising a capsule recognition module for recognizing a capsule inserted in said machine at a capsule recognition position, the capsule recognition module comprising a camera for capturing an image of at least part of sai...