BACKGROUND

A variety of beverage dispensing devices have been developed for controllably dispensing beverages. Typically, the beverage dispensing device has a reservoir portion which retains a volume of prepared beverage. Such prepared beverages can be in the form of heated, cooled, or ambient. A device such as a dispensing faucet or spigot is provided on the dispenser so that a user can controllably dispense a volume of beverage from the dispenser. This allows a beverage provider such as a restaurant, convenient store, banquet facility or other location to provide a volume of prepared beverage available for customer use and to allow self-serve or customer dispensing of the beverage from the container in a controlled manner. Such dispensers have become virtually ubiquitous in the restaurant environment either on the customer side or crew side of the kitchen.

While such dispensers can be provided with a variety of faucet styles, there are some generally common components of such a faucet. The faucet attaches to the reservoir of the dispenser by means of a hollow shank that connects to the side wall or bottom wall of the reservoir. The cavity formed by the walls of the reservoir communicate with the hollow portion of the shank to allow beverage to flow from the reservoir into the shank. The faucet also includes a valve assembly in a nozzle body to control or stop the flow of beverage out of the nozzle. The valve portion is connected to a valve operating assembly including a handle that allows the user to grip the handle, move the handle, and operate the valve.

As an example, a typical reservoir allows beverage to be available to a customer. The customer approaches the dispenser with a cup, holds the cup under the faucet, and operates the faucet by gripping the handle. Customers have become used to the hand eye coordination to grip the handle and controllably move the handle to a degree that allows controlled dispensing with little or no splashing into the cup or overflow from the cup. Typically, users position the cup by gripping the outside wall of the cup and positioning a mouth of the cup underneath the outlet of the nozzle. This typically aligns the nozzle within the area defined by the rim of the cup or mouth. As the customer watches the beverage flow from the nozzle into the cup they may reduce the flow by manipulating the handle to facilitate some closure of the valve as they approach the level of beverage in the cup that they wish to dispense. Once the customer has dispensed the desired amount into the cup they release the handle and it returns to the “home” position whereby the valve is closed. In other words, such valve assemblies are configured to provide a normal “closed” position by means of a valve system that might be in the form of a spring loaded valve either by use of an elastomeric or coil spring, as well as similar devices.

While customers are familiar with this type of operation, it can involve unintended communication of germs, dirt, other material or substances that might be carried on their hands. If a customer has substance on their hands they unintentionally may transfer that to the handle portion of the dispensing nozzle. In addition, the customer would not want to touch the cup rim to the nozzle. Either the current customer may have already sipped out of the cup and thus transferred anything that is on their lips or on their mouth to the cup rim or a preceding customer may have done this. As such, it would be desirable to provide a generally touchless beverage dispensing experience by means of an adapter that communicates with and functions with a faucet to reduce or eliminate the need to directly touch the surfaces of the faucet to operate the faucet and dispense beverage from the reservoir. Such a touchless adapter would help to reduce or eliminate the potential for transfer of substances from customers to the faucet, the beverage dispensing device, and their components and surfaces.

As an additional matter, as noted above, a variety of faucets have been used on a variety of beverage dispensers. This could be either because the beverage dispenser requires a particular type of faucet or the manufacturer seeks to have a proprietary or other stylized handle. Therefore it would be helpful to provide an adapter that can be used to operate the faucet in a touchless manner and that can be used on a variety of dispensing faucets.

It would be desirable to provide a device that can be attached, is attachable, and/or is removably attached to a dispensing faucet on a beverage dispenser to eliminate the need for a customer to physically engage or otherwise contact the handle of the faucet. In addition, it would be useful to also configure such an adapter so as to prevent contact between the customer and any other dispensing components associated with the nozzle or the device. In addition, it would be desirable to provide an adapter that can be attached to a faucet that also prevents contact with the rim of the cup. Such a adapter in such a configuration would be useful to reduce the contact between users and the faucet assembly and reduce the transfer of materials from the users' hands, from the rim of the cup, and any other surfaces to the dispenser.

A variety of dispensing faucets have been developed. An example of such a dispensing faucet can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,904,174 (the “Giese Patent”). Such a dispensing faucet has been described above, generally with regard to a type of dispensing faucet. The Giese Patent shows a faucet assembly that includes a nozzle body, a shank, a valve assembly, and a handle for operating the valve assembly. The handle in the Giese Patent is generally configured in such a manner that there is a vertical upstanding portion that can be gripped by the user. While not clearly shown, this type of handle is the type that has been produced by Tomlinson Industries (The Meyer Company) which includes a forked portion with a cross member defining an aperture within the handle. It is believed that this type of handle assembly is configured and functions to allow a user to grip the handle for operation.

Another example of a dispensing apparatus is a cup trip assembly such as the one shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,938,386 (the “Roethel Patent”). Such a cup trip assembly includes a pivot cross member, downward extending arms, and a cup engaging portion. This configuration of a cup trip assembly operates in a different manner from the device as shown in the Giese Patent. The Roethel Patent is shown as being designed for a particular dispensing device.

The aforementioned patents show different types of dispensing apparatus specifically configured for attachment to a reservoir. One of the problems that arises in the beverage dispensing industry is that a single manufacturer might have multiple types of faucet handles on their devices. As such it would be desirable to provide an adapter that can provide application to a variety of handles and faucet assemblies. While all of the faucet assemblies could be removed and completely new faucet assembly attached, this is impractical since that requires significant investment in the new faucet assemblies, as well as significant time to enter the field to make modifications to such devices. Therefore it would be desirable to provide an adapter that the provider of the beverage dispenser or other party can provide to customers and that the customer can attach to a variety of faucet assemblies to facilitate touchless use of the faucet assembly on their beverage dispenser. It would also be desirable to provide such an adapter that is configured to attachment to an existing faucet in the field and to accomplish this attachment without the need for tools, fasteners, adhesive, or other accessories.

This background information is provided for some information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present disclosure. No admission is intended, nor should such admission be inferred or construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present disclosure. Other aims, objects, advantages and features of the disclosure will become more apparent upon reading of the following non-restrictive description of specific embodiments thereof, given by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings.

