Cigarette pack

Details Cigarette pack Cigarette pack

1998-12-21

1999-12-14

Fidei, David T.

Special receptacle or package

For tobacco, pipe or cigarette holder

With opening or separating means

206268, 2291601, A24F 1500

Patent

active

060005394

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to packaging for smoking articles such as cigarettes, cigars or cigarillos and particularly though not exclusively for cigarettes. For convenience we will refer to the smoking articles as cigarettes in this specification.
It is highly desirable that packaged cigarettes should be protected from deterioration due to excessive or reduced humidity and should not lose flavour by exposure to air or moisture. In a conventional cigarette carton the primary barrier layer is afforded by an external wrap of transparent plastics material, usually a polypropylene, which can be removed by use of a tear strip when the smoker wishes to open the carton. Inside such cartons a secondary barrier is provided by a composite of thin paper and metal foil which immediately surrounds the cigarettes but which being merely folded around them is not a sealed enclosure and indeed usually has a completely separate portion at the top which is lifted out and discarded by the user when he wishes to get access to the cigarettes.
In the United States where "soft packs" of cigarettes are prevalent, the outer layer of such packs may be a metallised plastics layer or a laminate which includes a metal layer, both of which have very superior barrier properties and which when appropriately printed can have an attractive appearance. It is completely sealed round the pack. However the material being soft and flexible can be punctured or torn; furthermore, soft packs are not regarded as commercially attractive in other parts of the world. Examples of a soft pack are to be seen in GB-A-1471086 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,427,235, the latter showing a metallised external barrier material.
An object of the present invention is to provide a pack for cigarettes which has a highly effective, sealed, barrier layer which is contained within a protective shell of a carton; the carton may optionally be overwrapped with a conventional transparent or other barrier layer.
The internal barrier layer is formed of a plastics/metal laminate or of a metallised plastics material. Both of these have superior barrier properties and attractive appearance. The carton is of the hinged-lid type, namely one in which the lid is hinged adjacent a rear or side wall of the carton, has side walls which extend towards the opposite panel and which when opened by rotation along its hinge line gives access to the ends of a collocation of cigarettes within the carton so that they can be withdrawn essentially along the direction of their own axis, if appropriate after removal of an internal barrier layer.
An internal barrier of metal-containing composite material can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,286,712 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,001,325 (FIGS. 7 and 8) with in both cases a tearable flap being defined by lines of weakness and being torn upwardly by the user pulling directly or indirectly upon the bottom edge of that flap. GB-A-2038765 has an aroma-tight enclosure within a hinged-lid container, openable by pulling on a pull tab to cause separation of the material of the enclosure along a line parallel with one edge of the container.
In the invention, a barrier layer and an outside edge forming a sealed enclosure is interposed between the cigarettes and a carton and at least a portion of an edge of the carton is immediately adjacent one edge of a separation line of the barrier layer and outside that edge. Usually the barrier layer will have a tear strip one edge of which is on the aligned separation line; when the tear strip or other pull means on the barrier layer is pulled outwardly by the user in order to separate the top portion of the barrier enclosure from its lower portion, the aligned edge acts as an "anvil" supporting the barrier layer against outward movement and thereby assisting a positive and clean separation of the upper portion of the barrier layer along the predetermined path determined by and aligned with the said edge of the carton.
The said edge of the carton is preferably provided by an inner frame member.
The inner frame member may be the sole member of the inne

REFERENCES:
patent: 3245525 (1966-04-01), Shoemaker
patent: 3948389 (1976-04-01), Molins et al.
patent: 5529180 (1996-06-01), Paolucci et al.

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