Card – picture – or sign exhibiting – Check – label – or tag – Bottle-carried indicia
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-05
2004-02-17
Hoge, Gary (Department: 3611)
Card, picture, or sign exhibiting
Check, label, or tag
Bottle-carried indicia
Reexamination Certificate
active
06691439
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a full-shrink labeled container with a shrink label applied to a body of a container such as a glass bottle and plastic bottle, as well as a tubular shrink label, and more particularly a tubular shrink label having a high shrinkability and a full-shrink labeled container with the tubular shrink label applied thereto.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Conventionally known containers of this type include a glass bottle for soft drink beverages and the like whose body has a shrink label applied thereto. The body of the glass bottle is covered with a shrink label with pre-applied designs, printed representations, etc., thereto.
The labeled container of the above conventional type has a neck positioned above the body, having a diameter smaller than the body and being tapered down to the tip. The neck is, however, not covered with the shrink label and therefore exposed. This leads to lacking the sense of unity in appearance of the glass bottle and the shrink label, and particularly for a brown bottle filled with beer or the like, the problem of lacking the sense of unity in appearance is obvious, since the brown surface is exposed.
Recently used as a stopper for sealing an opening of the container in place of a conventional cap, screw cap and the like is a breakable cap for easy open having excellent opening and sealing abilities. The breakable cap for easy open is formed with a pull ring extending downwardly to act as a pulling part for unsealing, so that the opening of the bottle can be unsealed by breaking the breakable cap away from the opening of the bottle through pull-up action effected by a finger inserted into the pull ring and application of the pull-up action thereto.
The container however poses a problem that the pull ring tends to be caught by something, causing deformation or damage of itself during distribution, handling, etc., of the container.
The conventional container thus poses various problems due to the exposure of the neck, the pull ring, etc., with the shrink label applied only to the body. On the other hand, for the container with the greatly smaller neck such as having a diameter about ⅓ times the diameter of the body, the shrink label is required to have a high shrinkability effected only in the peripheral direction. Therefore, it is difficult to cover the container, even to the neck, with a single shrink film sheet to obtain a united appearance, and also difficult to manufacture the container having such a united appearance at a relatively low cost and in large quantities.
In consideration of the above conventional problems, it is an object of the present invention to achieve an improved appearance of the container and prevent the deformation, damages, etc., of the cap during the distribution, etc., by unitedly covering the container from the body to the neck with a single shrink label.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The full-shrink labeled container of the present invention has been conceived to solve the above problems, and has an opening scaled with a plug provided with a pull-up part for unsealing, a body to which a shrink label having a heat shrinkability is applied, and a neck having the circumference shorter than that of the body. The container is characterized by that the shrink label covers the container from the lower end part to the upper end part and also the pull-up part, and is formed with tear-off means capable of exposing the pull-up part.
The full-shrink labeled container has the pull-up part covered with the shrink label so as not to be exposed, thereby eliminating the possibility that the pull-up part is caught by something during the distribution. In addition, the shrink label unitedly covers the container, even to the neck, thereby preventing the surface of the container from being exposed.
Moreover, the opening of the container can be unsealed by tearing off the label through the tear-off means to expose the pull-up part of the cap, and then pulling the exposed pull-up part upwardly to remove the plug from the opening of the container.
A tubular shrink label according to the present invention is characterized by that it is formed by a polyester film having a heat shrinkability whose shrinkage percentage after the elapse of five seconds in hot water of 85° C. is 73% or more in the circumferential direction of the shrink label.
Whereby, the tubular shrink label, which has been fitted around the container with the body and the neck having a diameter smaller than the body, and then heat shrunk, can securely cover the container, even to the neck.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3733002 (1973-05-01), Fujio
patent: 3750317 (1973-08-01), Morgan
patent: 5605230 (1997-02-01), Marino et al.
patent: 5924739 (1999-07-01), Garbutt
patent: 6231958 (2001-05-01), Kim et al.
patent: 6385878 (2002-05-01), Key
Fukuhara Makoto
Haraya Takeshi
Hata Tetsuo
Kunitake Kazunori
Miyashita Takashi
Asahi Breweries Ltd.
Hoge Gary
Jordan and Hamburg LLP
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