Bottles and jars – Sidewall structure – Contoured sidewall
Reexamination Certificate
2001-04-19
2002-12-17
Young, Lee (Department: 3727)
Bottles and jars
Sidewall structure
Contoured sidewall
C215S379000, C215S381000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06494333
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a heat-resistant hollow container made of synthetic resin and formed by biaxially oriented blow-molding. More particularly, the present invention relates to a heat-resistant container made of synthetic resin and provided with projected sections on the wall thereof so as to be easily hooked by finger tips without forming a handle on the container body.
In recent years, since juice and other beverages are consumed by a large volume to reflect the changes in peoples life styles, containers made of synthetic resin and showing various different profiles are produced to contain such beverages. Some of such containers are very large, and become too heavy when filled with liquid, so that sometimes it can be too cumbersome and inconvenient to carry them and handle them otherwise.
In an attempt to eliminate the inconvenience, some large containers are provided with a handle on the body of the container, so that it may be easily carried by hand.
Large hollow containers for containing detergents and oil that do not need to be hot-filled are normally made of polyethylene or vinyl chloride resin, and formed by blow molding. It is easily to mold such a container with a handle integrally fitted to the container body by blow molding.
However, it is stipulated by law that containers for containing juice and other beverages need to be hot-filled and sterilized for the purpose of food sanitation, and therefore such hollow containers are required to be heat-resistant.
In recent years, heat-resistant containers are generally made of polyethylene-terephthalate (PET) resin and formed by blow molding in view of the safety of food, appearance including transparency, lightweight and mechanical strength.
However, to the contrary of the case of molding a hollow container from polyethylene or vinyl chloride resin, it is very difficult to mold a hollow container of PET resin integrally with a handle by blow molding, because of the properties of the resin and the process required to make the container heat-resistant.
Therefore, currently available containers of PET resin are normally prepared by injection molding a handle in advance, and then by insert molding the container with the handle, so as to attach the handle to the container body.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2-191156 discloses a heat-resistant container made of PET resin and provided with a handle, which is currently known as typical container of the type under consideration.
FIG. 9
of the accompanying drawings illustrates a container
50
as disclosed in the above Laid-Open No. 2-191156. Referring to
FIG. 9
, a handle
51
comprises a grip
52
and a pair of arms
53
,
53
projecting horizontally from opposite ends of the grip
52
, and each of the arms
53
is provided at the other end thereof with a projection
54
. The handle
51
is attached to a recess
55
provided at an upper portion of the container. The recess
55
is provided with a securing recess
55
at an innermost of thereof. The projection
54
is engaged with the securing recess
55
, so that an outer surface of the handle
51
is flush with an outer surface of the body of the container.
While a container provided with such handle shows a simple profile and a simple structure so that it can be molded with ease, when the container is inadvertently dropped on the floor with the handle facing downwardly during transportation or in use, the projecting ends of the arms of the handle tends to push the container body to break the body.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-223254 discloses a container realized by improving the handle of the above patent document as shown in FIG.
10
. Referring to
FIG. 10
, a container
60
is provided with a recess
67
at an upper portion of a body. Each of an upper lateral wall and a lower lateral of the recess
67
is provided with an engaging hole. The recess
67
of the container is also provided with a central vertical groove. A handle
61
comprises a grip plate
62
, an upper securing arm
63
a
extended forwardly from an upper end of the grip plate, a lower securing arm
63
b
extended forwardly from a lower end of the grip plate, and a securing beam plate
65
. The upper securing arm
63
a
is provided with an upward projection
64
a
. The lower securing arm
63
b
is provided with a downward projection
64
b
. The handle
61
is attached to the container by engaging the securing arms
63
a
,
63
b
with the engaging holes. The securing beam plate
65
is engaged with the central vertical groove. When forming the container with the handle, the handle
61
is arranged in a metal mold, a preform of PET resin is arranged in the mold, and then the preform is blow-molded by insert molding to form the container
60
with the handle.
Since the handle as disclosed in the latter patent document is attached to the container by insert molding in such a way that the securing beam plate and the securing arms of the handle engage respectively with the central vertical groove and the upper and lower engaging holes, the handle does not become loose nor come off from the right position. Additionally, since the securing beam plate
65
connects the upper and lower securing arms
63
a
,
63
b
, the distance between the arms
63
a
and
63
b
is maintained, and therefore does not push the container body, so as not to break the container when the container is inadvertently dropped on the floor with the handle facing downwardly during transportation or in use.
However, the above described known containers are not necessarily easy to grasp. A container provided with a handle is easy to grasp only when the grip portion of the handle is large enough for the four fingers of a hand to be snugly placed there, and in other words, the container should be large. However, the container body of the above described containers cannot always provide a room large enough for receiving such a handle.
Meanwhile, most popular containers for containing juice and other beverages are heat-resistant, and have a profile which is basically that of a cylinder or that of a polygonal prism with a capacity of 1.5 liters or less. Such containers need to satisfy various requirements in terms of the shape, the height and the overall size of the container, the surface area of the pressure reduction absorbing panels and the strength and the ease of molding of the container, so that the handle has to be subjected to a number of restrictions. In other words, the handle is not allowed to take a sufficient space, and is normally required to be minimized particularly when the container is intended to be placed on a display shelf.
Therefore, such container with such handle, particularly a cylindrical container with such handle, designed to meet the above requirements is not necessarily grasped by hand with ease.
In order to attach the handle to the container body, it is necessary to mold the handle and then to insert-mold them. Thus, a complex molding apparatus needs to be installed to involve a number of molding steps and high manufacturing cost.
Additionally, most containers provided with a handle fitted thereto by the above described method are designed to be filled with liquid at or near room temperature or, if hot-filled, with liquid heated to 75° C. at most. Heat-resistant containers that are designed to be filled with liquid heated to about 85° C. are not available at present.
This is because it is difficult to uniformly heat-set the undercut portions where the handle having a complex profile is attached to the body of the PET container. Thus, if such container is filled with liquid of very high temperature, the undercut portion tends to be thermally deformed to disengage the handle from the container.
When filling heat-resistant PET resin containers with juice or some other beverage, the containers have to be hermetically sealed immediately after the filling operation, and then heated for sterilization typically in a pasteurizer for food sanitation. Then, if PET resin container has relatively low rigidity, the container tends to be deformed w
Iizuka Takao
Sasaki Masaaki
Mai Tri M.
Oliff & Berridg,e PLC
Yoshino Kogyosho Co. Ltd.
Young Lee
LandOfFree
Heat-resistant hollow container does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Heat-resistant hollow container, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Heat-resistant hollow container will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2983797