Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture – Methods – Surface bonding and/or assembly therefor
Patent
1997-02-24
1998-08-04
Sells, James
Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
Methods
Surface bonding and/or assembly therefor
156234, 156240, 156249, 428 418, 428202, 428914, B44C 1165
Patent
active
057887969
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to decals and stickers, that is, adhesive coated labels. More specifically, the invention relates to such labels which are retroreflective, and which are provided with variable printed material, and to a method of making same which can be implemented simply and inexpensively to produce individualized labels. The present invention also relates to apparatus for laminating items and which apparatus will also transfer adhesives to substrates for purposes of producing articles such as decals and stickers.
2. Related Art
All the states in the United States validate various motor vehicle-related requirements by issuing the vehicle owner a decal to place on the vehicle indicating compliance with the particular requirement. These requirements include, but are not limited to, tax payment, vehicle mechanical inspection, emission inspections, payment for access to parking, and membership in the fire department.
At present, the decals indicating compliance with all of these requirements are made in a central location and typically are issued by one of three means: (1) The decal is applied for and returned to the recipient by mail from a central location. (2) The decal is issued from several governmental offices in the state. (3) The decal is issued by large numbers of privately owned businesses in the state. Information placed on these decals has at most a control number for the state to track the decals. In many states, the control number is essentially useless, because of the difficulty of keeping track of the recipient, where the recipient places the decal with a particular control number, and who can enforce non-compliance. Frequently, the state only has partial control over the decals sent to a particular issuing location, and must trust the issuer to return information matching recipients with decals. Due to the foregoing difficulties, states often find tracking validation decals to be problematic.
Also, fraud can be committed by stealing a decal rather than acquiring it through the proper procedures, by buying and using a counterfeit decal, and by purchasing a decal for one vehicle and using it on another vehicle (referred to as "transferring" the decal). One way to prevent fraud is to print, at the time of issue, vehicle specific information on a decal made from a material that cannot be counterfeited. This is difficult to do under present decal production systems, since the decals are produced at a central location using expensive, automated equipment.
Such expensive automated equipment cannot be cost-justified for non-centralized governmental offices (such as state motor vehicle department offices) and privately-owned locations. Thus, decals issued from many governmental offices or privately-owned locations need a low cost system that can produce the same decals as expensive, automated equipment found at a central location.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Based on the foregoing, there exists a need for an adhesive coated decal, and particularly a retroreflective decal, having variable information printed thereon, and an inexpensive and simple method of printing a retroreflective label with variable information and coating it with adhesive, as well as for a simple multi-purpose apparatus which can both serve to apply laminates to documents and papers and which will also serve to apply adhesive, including dry adhesives, to materials of various sizes so a wide variety of labels and decals can be produced. The decal and method of the present invention provide for over-the-counter issuance of a retroreflective decal having variable information printed thereon on an on-demand basis. The apparatus of the present invention can apply clear plastic laminates to master substrates of various sizes and can also transfer adhesive to substrates of various sizes not being limited by length. Adhesive transfer can be applied to either surface of the item as required. The apparatus can also apply dry adhesives from double sided release coated liner
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Bradshaw Franklin C.
Look Thomas F.
O'Keefe Robert V.
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
Sells James
LandOfFree
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