Flexible bags – Bag having means to facilitate opening it by severing bag...
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-02
2001-11-20
Garbe, Stephen P. (Department: 3727)
Flexible bags
Bag having means to facilitate opening it by severing bag...
C206S554000, C383S107000, C383S903000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06318893
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to bags and, more particularly, to bags that are filled and then sealed to hermetically seal the contents within the bag. Specifically, the present invention relates to a sealable bag having a pair of stress relief areas that prevent the area of the bag that is to be sealed from being wrinkled during the sealing process. The invention also relates to the method of holding, filling, and sealing the bags.
2. Background Information
Various products are now being packaged in sealed bags that allow the consumer to break the initial seal and then selectively seal and reseal the bag with a secondary closure member. These bags are primarily fabricated from flexible plastic or metalized plastic. Some bags have gusseted bottoms that must be opened prior to filling the bag. For this reason and others, many bag filling operations have been performed manually. Problems sealing the bags in manual operations were not encountered because the person filling the bag and passing it on to the sealing machine could smooth the sealing area before the sealing machine sealed the bag.
As a result in the increased popularity of these bags, automated filling and sealing devices have been invented to increase the efficiency of filling and sealing the bags. One such machine is disclosed in pending patent application Ser. No. 60/161,772, filed Oct. 27, 1999. The disclosures of this application are incorporated herein by reference in order to fully disclose how these machines operate. In this machine, a pair of fingers grab the top corners of the bag to pull the top of the bag taut so that it may be sealed. A problem in the art is that some bags wrinkle in the sealing area when pulled taut. The wrinkles degrade the appearance of the resulting seal and may degrade the effectiveness of the seal. Some consumers have refused to use the automated machinery to fill and seal their bags until the wrinkling problems can be solved.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the foregoing, an objective of the present invention is to provide a bag for an automated filling and sealing machine that eliminates the wrinkling problem caused by the fingers that pull the sides of the bag apart.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a bag that may be used with the automated machinery and that will be accepted by the consumers who use the bags.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a solution that may be incorporated into existing bags without requiring the existing bag structure to be altered.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a bag that may be used with existing automated filling and sealing machinery as well as the manual filling and sealing systems.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a method for automatically filling and sealing bags without wrinkling the area of the bag to be sealed.
These and other objectives and advantages of the invention are achieved by a sealable bag for storing merchandise, the bag including a body forming a pocket that is adapted to receive the merchandise; the pocket having an opening through which merchandise is placed into the pocket; the body having a pair of flanges disposed along the sides of the body; the body having a neck; the opening of the pocket being disposed at the neck of the body; the neck having a sealing area; and each of the flanges defining a stress relief notch disposed intermediate the sealing area and the opening of the pocket.
Other objectives and advantages of the invention are achieved by a sealable bag for storing merchandise, the bag including a body forming a pocket that is adapted to receive the merchandise; the pocket having an opening through which merchandise is placed into the pocket; the body having a pair of flanges disposed along the sides of the body; the neck having a sealing area; and each of the flanges defining a stress relief notch disposed intermediate the sealing area and the opening of the pocket.
Still other objectives and advantages of the invention are achieved by a method of sealing a bag including the steps of providing a bag having an opening, a pair of upper corners at the edges of the opening, a sealing area, and pair of flanges that each define a stress relief notch intermediate the sealing area and the opening; grasping the upper corners of the bag with fingers; pulling the upper corners of the bag away from each other; and forming a seal in the sealing area of the bag.
REFERENCES:
patent: D. 306555 (1990-03-01), Lane et al.
patent: D. 312569 (1990-12-01), Wijas
patent: D. 319176 (1991-08-01), Sherman
patent: D. 386398 (1997-11-01), Davis
patent: D. 418747 (2000-01-01), Sagel
patent: D. 438793 (2001-03-01), Croft
patent: 1007918 (1911-11-01), Chambers
patent: 2329360 (1943-09-01), Salfisberg
patent: 2999627 (1961-09-01), Reinhardt
patent: 3008837 (1961-11-01), Kaplan
patent: 3054551 (1962-09-01), Holbrook et al.
patent: 3155282 (1964-11-01), Leblanc
patent: 3372857 (1968-03-01), Brayla
patent: 3625351 (1971-12-01), Eisenberg
patent: 3768725 (1973-10-01), Pilaro
patent: 3799914 (1974-03-01), Schmit et al.
patent: 3980225 (1976-09-01), Kan
patent: 3983994 (1976-10-01), Wyslotsky
patent: 4007838 (1977-02-01), Awad
patent: 4176567 (1979-12-01), Weisberg
patent: 4263768 (1981-04-01), Russell et al.
patent: 4509196 (1985-04-01), Sak et al.
patent: 4598826 (1986-07-01), Shinbach
patent: 4759643 (1988-07-01), Canno
patent: 4903841 (1990-02-01), Ohsima et al.
patent: 4961503 (1990-10-01), Bell
patent: 5018646 (1991-05-01), Billman et al.
patent: 5046621 (1991-09-01), Bell
patent: 5419638 (1995-05-01), Jamison
patent: 5470419 (1995-11-01), Sasaki et al.
patent: 5795071 (1998-08-01), Sasaki et al.
patent: 5894929 (1999-04-01), Kai et al.
patent: 6120183 (2000-09-01), Buchanan et al.
Garbe Stephen P.
Gates Automation, Inc.
Sand & Sebolt
LandOfFree
Bag for automated filing and sealing machine does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Bag for automated filing and sealing machine, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Bag for automated filing and sealing machine will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2618648