US Patent Issued to Symbotic on June 17 for "Methods and apparatus for facilitating transport of items between a store and a customer via a customer access portal" (Massachusetts, New Hampshire Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,333,915, issued on June 17, was assigned to Symbotic LLC (Wilmington, Mass.).

"Methods and apparatus for facilitating transport of items between a store and a customer via a customer access portal" was invented by John G. Lert Jr. (Wakefield, Mass.), William Fosnight (Windham, N.H.) and Frederick Morgan (North Billerica, Mass.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A customer access system includes one or more customer access portals to dispense ordered items to customers and/or receive returned items from customers. A tote transfer system transports one or more totes to carry the ordered items and the returned items to and from the customer acc...