Surgery – Means and methods for collecting body fluids or waste material – Absorbent pad for external or internal application and...
Reexamination Certificate
1998-05-06
2001-03-13
Weiss, John G. (Department: 3761)
Surgery
Means and methods for collecting body fluids or waste material
Absorbent pad for external or internal application and...
Reexamination Certificate
active
06200299
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disposable diaper having an absorbent part, a pair of ear parts projecting in opposite directions from the side edges of one longitudinal end portion of the absorbent part, and two fastening means provided on the side edges of the ear parts, respectively, and capable of effectively distributing tensile forces applied to the absorbent part by the fastening means around the waist and around the legs to prevent the leakage of liquid excrement through spaces between the edges of the disposable diaper and the wearer's waist and legs and of giving comfort to the wearer.
1. Description of the Related Art
A generally known disposable diaper comprises an absorbent part for covering the wearer's crotch, formed by sandwiching an absorbent core between a top sheet and a back sheet, a pair of ear parts projecting in opposite directions from the side edges of one longitudinal end portion of the absorbent part so as to lap around the wearer's waist, and two fastening means provided on the side edges of the ear parts, respectively. When using this disposable diaper, the disposable diaper is put on the wearer in an ordinary manner, and then the fastening means are attached to portions of the absorbent part lapping around the waist, on the opposite sides of the fastening means, respectively, to hold the disposable diaper on the wearer. When thus put on the wearer, the disposable diaper must fit to the wearer's waist and legs so that any spaces through which liquid excrement will leak may not be formed between the disposable diaper and the wearer's waist and legs. When putting the disposable diaper provided with the fastening means provided on the side edges of the ear parts, respectively, on the wearer, it is difficult to concentrate the tensile forces applied to the absorbent part by the fastening means effectively on portions of the absorbent part lapped around the wearer's waist and legs, that is, spaces are formed around the wearer's legs and liquid excrement leaks outside through the spaces around the legs if the disposable diaper is fitted to the wearer's waist, or spaces are formed around the wearer's waist and the disposable diaper cannot lap fitly around the wearer's waist and liquid excrement leaks outside through the spaces around the waist if the disposable diaper is fitted to the wearer's legs.
Various improvements have been proposed to solve such problems and to improve the fit of a disposable diaper to the wearer's waist and legs. Techniques for improving the fit of a disposable diaper to both the waist and the legs are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,680,030 to Aled, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,826,499 to Ahr and U.S. Pat. No. 4,937,887 to Schreiner, which use two pairs of fastening means attached to a pair of ear parts projecting in opposite directions from a portion of the disposable diaper to be lapped around the waist, respectively. These prior art disposable diapers, however, require troublesome work for handling the two pairs of fastening means and there is room for improvement in those prior art disposable diapers. Techniques eliminating such a disadvantage are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,911,702 to O'Leary and U.S. Pat. No. 4,857,067 to Wood, which use two fastening means attached to two ear parts, respectively, and capable of effectively concentrating the tensile forces applied thereto on portions of the absorbent part lapped around the waist and the legs. However, these techniques mention nothing about the positions of the two fastening means to distribute the tensile forces applied to the two fastening means effectively and directly around the waist and the legs and about the positions of the two fastening means to distribute the tensile forces applied to the two fastening means around the waist and the legs at an intentionally determined distribution ratio.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is a first object of the present invention to provide a disposable diaper having an absorbent part provided with fastening means positioned so that tensile forces applied thereto are distributed at a desired distribution ratio to a waist lapping section of the absorbent part lapped around the waist and to leg lapping sections of the same lapped around the legs.
A second object of the present invention is to provide a disposable diaper having an absorbent part having leg lapping sections to be lapped around the legs, provided with elastic leg fastening members, respectively, and fastening means disposed so that the tensile forces applied thereto may be effectively and directly concentrated on a waist lapping section of the absorbent part lapped around the waist and on the elastic leg fastening members.
A third object of the present invention is to provide a disposable diaper having an absorbent part having a waist lapping section provided with elastic waist fastening members, and leg lapping sections provided with elastic leg fastening members and fastening means positioned so that the tensile forces applied thereto may be effectively and directly concentrated on the elastic leg fastening members and the elastic waist fastening members.
In a first aspect of the present invention, a disposable diaper comprises: an absorbent part formed by sandwiching an absorbent core between a top sheet and a back sheet so that the absorbent core may correspond to the wearer's crotch when the disposable diaper is put on the wearer; a pair of ear parts projecting in opposite directions from the opposite side edges of one longitudinal end portion of the absorbent part, respectively; and two fastening means attached to the side edges of the ear parts, respectively. In this disposable diaper, each ear part has a stress relaxing structure, in which a tensile stress smaller than that which is induced in the peripheral portion of the ear part is induced, in a portion thereof other than the peripheral portion, and each fastening means is attached to the ear part in a pulling section of the side edge of the ear part, overlapping at least part of a first side edge section extending on the side of one longitudinal end edge of the absorbent part corresponding to the ear part from a first boundary line extending from a point on the one longitudinal end edge so as to be tangent to the stress relaxing structure, and part of a second side edge section extending on the side of the transverse center axis of the absorbent part perpendicular to the longitudinal center axis of the absorbent part from a second boundary line extending from a point on the side edge of the absorbent part so as to be tangent to the stress relaxing structure.
The degree of overlap of the pulling section with the first side edge section and the degree of overlap of the same with the second side edge section can be optionally determined. Those degrees of overlap may be different from or equal to each other, the former may be greater than the latter or the latter may be greater than the former. Each fastening means may be attached to the ear part at an angle to the side edge of the ear part.
In a second aspect of the present invention, a disposable diaper comprises: an absorbent part formed by sandwiching an absorbent core between a top sheet and a back sheet so that the absorbent core may correspond to the wearer's crotch when the disposable diaper is put on the wearer, and having a first waist lapping section and a second waist lapping section contiguous with the first and the second longitudinal end edge, respectively; a crotch lapping section extending between the first and the second waist lapping section and around the transverse center axis of the absorbent part; elastic leg fastening means extending along the opposite longitudinal side edges of the crotch lapping section of the absorbent part, respectively; a pair of ear parts projecting from the opposite side edges of the first waist lapping section of the absorbent part; and two fastening means attached to the side edges
Cho David J.
Kolodesh Michael S.
Patel Ken K.
The Procter & Gamble & Company
Weirich David M.
LandOfFree
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