Newspaper vending machine

Claim 1

A newspaper vending machine comprising: an outer housing (10) having mounted therein a vertical wall (13) and a slanted wall (14), said walls cooperating to provide a slanted stacking of newspapers (12) to be dispensed, a telescoping rod assembly (20) means mounted to hold a newspaper stack (12) in a predispensed position within said housing (10), lip means (25) at an upper portion of said telescoping rod assembly (20), motor means (30) mounted within said housing (10) for activating said telescoping rod assembly (20) and the attached lip means (25) whereby a top newspaper in stack (12) is caused to slide by gravity force over said lip means upon lowering of said telescoping rod assembly, comparative and memory circuit means (50) for activating said motor means (30), magnetic card reader means (40) for supplying newspaper dispensing data to said comparative and memory circuit means (50), said magnetic card reader means (40) being capable of reading data input means from a pre-encoded magnetic card (41), said data input means comprising a machine code number (51) whereby the magnetic card (41) will be effective to operate only a given newspaper vending machine, said data input means further comprising a subscriber code number (52) and wherein said comparative and memory circuit means (50) includes means whereby only a single newspaper may be dispensed by a particular magnetic card (41) during a given twenty-four hour period, said data input means further comprising subscription date coding and wherein said comparative and memory circuit means (50) includes a calendar date cycle means (55) for comparison with said subscription date input data whereby a newspaper (12) will only be dispensed if the appropriate date is encoded on the magnetic card (41).

Claim 6

A method of dispensing newspapers from a vending machine comprising: stacking a plurality of newspapers (12) in a vending machine (10), operating said vending machine by comparative and memory circuit means (50), reading data into said comparative and memory circuit means by way of a magnetic card reader (40) and a magnetic card means (41), said data read into said circuit means (50) comprising a subscriber code number (52) and a subscription date code (55), said circuit means (50) including means (53) for storing the subscriber code number for a fixed period so that a second newspaper cannot be obtained by using the same magnetic card means (41) during said fixed period, said circuit means (50) further including a date calendar means (55) for comparison to the subscription date code read in via magnetic card means (41).

Claim 7

A method of dispensing newspapers from a vending machine comprising: stacking a plurality of newspapers (12) in a vending machine (10), operating said vending machine by comparative and memory circuit means (50), reading data into said comparative and memory circuit means by way of a magnetic card reader (40) and a magnetic card means (41), said data read into said circuit means (50) comprising a subscriber code number (52) and a subscription date code (55), said circuit means (50) including means (53) for storing the subscriber code number for a fixed period so that a second newspaper cannot be obtained by using the same magnetic card means (41) during said fixed period, said circuit means (50) further including a date calendar means (55) for comparison to the subscription date code read in via magnetic card means (41).