Bottle handling device

Details Bottle handling device Bottle handling device

2001-08-31

2003-06-03

Gerrity, Stephen F. (Department: 3721)

Package making

Depositing articles and arranging material in preformed...

Guide or inserted form or support for article contents

C053S257000, C206S196000, C206S201000, C206S814000, C220S528000, C220S510000, C220S509000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06571533

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to secondary packaging of the type often used for transporting a plurality of primary packages especially glass bottles in, for example, the distribution of brewery or other beverage products to the public. More specifically, this invention relates to a bottle handling device for use in association with such secondary packaging and particularly, its use in a system for returning such bottles when empty to a recycling facility or the like using the original secondary container.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Secondary packaging is often employed in retail packaging and distribution of foods especially beverages such as soft drinks or brewery products. Typically such packaging is made of corrugated board or fiberboard, and, in its most familiar form, as generally rectangular cartons. As will be noted, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the brewing industry and the secondary containers will be generally referred to as “cartons”. Such cartons are usually provided with partitions or “dividers” which divide the carton's interior into a plurality of pocket-like compartments or cells that are adapted to receive individual ones of the primary packages say bottles. This partitioning of the cartons interior serves a number of purposes not the least of which is to hold the bottles in mutually spaced relation. This is intended to help avoid the breakage that direct contact due to movement of the bottles might otherwise occur during the course of normal handling of the carton.
The dividers are usually made up of a series of interconnected wall members. Depending on any one or more of a myriad of design factors, such members may be formed as part of, or affixed to, the interior walls of the carton. More typically, however, (and especially in the case of dividers intended for use with ten or more bottles), such dividers are manufactured independently of the carton proper. They are only subsequently inserted into the carton most often immediately prior to the introduction of the bottles and are not secured to the container. The set-up and insertion steps are often mechanized operations effected by specialized sections of high speed packaging lines.
All dividers, to be practical and commercially suitable for such applications, must be inexpensive both in terms of their materials and their assembly/insertion costs, and yet must survive not only the initial packaging operation, but also be convenient and durable enough to facilitate refilling the carton by the consumer for the return of recyclable bottles. In that regard, with respect to the latter activity, the divider functions adequately provided care is taken by the consumer in inserting the empty bottles back into the case. Not surprisingly, in view of the above comments, attempts have been made to make the system more convenient whilst maintaining low costs, particularly in relation to the packaging of bottled brewery products.
Traditionally the brewing industry standard for dividers in the so-called “twenty-four pack” carton or cases, (named to reflect the number of bottles each such case is adapted to carry), comprises a series of eight strips or panels of relatively thin and easily deformed fiberboard. Three such panels are arranged in a spaced, mutually parallel orientation and these are traversed at right angles by the remaining five strips which are themselves arranged in a mutually parallel evenly spaced apart relation. Typically the junction between any two strips is formed by the inter-nesting of opposed, complimentary slots, arranged on respective ones of the two intersecting strips. The result is the creation of a rectangular array of twenty-four generally rectangular similar sized pockets the outer ones of which use part of a container wall to “complete” the cell. Such dividers are usually produced and assembled by the carton manufacturer and shipped in a collapsed condition to the brewery packaging department. In the brewery facility the collapsed dividers are drawn from inventory on a demand basis shortly before cartons into which they are to be placed are scheduled for filling. Machinery at the packaging facility sets up both the required number of cartons and corresponding dividers and inserts an erected divider within each carton. Packing equipment then aligns the cartons and dividers in a predetermined orientation, and droploads the twenty-four product—filled bottles into their assigned pockets within the carton. Such dividers are expensive to manufacture and handle and any malfunction of the set-up equipment can be very disruptive and costly. Even if intended to be re-used, the damage rate during the use cycle is extremely high and many, upon their return, cannot be re-used. Yet, in spite of these shortcomings, they have for many years been, and up to now remain, the commercial solution of choice in many markets.
With respect to the re-use of the carton to return empty bottles, this can work adequately provided care is taken in inserting the empty bottles into the bottle pockets. The divider wall material is relatively easily crushed and if a bottle is not cleanly inserted into the pocket, the pocket wall material can readily be deformed or even flattened. This not only prevents the specific bottle from being successfully lodged correctly in its associated pocket, but the integrity of adjacent and other pockets are compromised and will then also probably not accept empty bottles as well. Therefore attempts to pack the bottles often results in the need to re-pack. This has proved to be not only an inconvenience to the individual home consumer but to a retail seller of the product, such as a bar or restaurant, where the need to load empty bottles into cartons and remove them from the beverage dispensing area in a rapid and convenient manner is very important since otherwise it creates disruptions in work flow and reduced efficiency.
In view of the above and to further reduce costs, attempts have been made to market the consumer products in primary containers, with bottles being a significant example, in secondary containers, usually cartons, with no partitions separating the bottles. It will be appreciated that when dividers are used, the carton interior length and width dimensions are designed to allow for the thickness of several strips of the divider material. Consequently, when the divider unit is omitted, there would be space between adjacent bottles allowing same to move and make direct contact with each other during normal handling providing potential for increased scuffing and breakage of bottles. To reduce and even eliminate that possibility, when the divider unit is omitted the interior length and width dimensions of the carton are reduced so that the bottles are maintained in direct and constant contact with adjacent bottles and/or carton walls which prevents the bottles moving. Obviously only the main cylindrical part of the bottle that is, from the shoulder to the bottom (herein termed “main body”), can contact each other and, in fact, modern designs include features such as panel bulbs which restrict contact between adjacent bottles to specific bottle areas where adverse effects can be minimized. It should also be noted that when a partitionless carton is fitted with standard round bottles, the volume in the carton containing the main bodies of the bottles will be fully occupied apart from a series of voids or spaces formed between adjacent bottles and between some of the bottles and adjacent carton wall(s) because of the circular character of the bottles. The main body will, in general have the largest diameter of all sections of the bottle. Machine-filling partitionless cartons with full bottles at the bottling facility does not create these problems. However, the omission of the dividers does not eliminate problems when hand packing of the carton with empty bottles for their return has to be effected. In fact, in the absence of the divider unit there is scope for the empty bottles to topple over when being placed in the

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