Special receptacle or package – For squeeze tube
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-10
2002-11-26
Gehman, Bryon P. (Department: 3629)
Special receptacle or package
For squeeze tube
C206S775000, C229S120120
Reexamination Certificate
active
06484876
ABSTRACT:
The present invention relates to a packaging box, particularly one made of cardboard or a similar material, intended to house, and hold in place during transport and/or during the storage period, an object such as a flexible tube, for example one made of metal. More particularly, the invention is aimed at a packaging box of the type with built-in wedging, making it possible to improve the immobilization of the packaged object as compared with a simple box, and protect it from any damage.
Packaging boxes of this type have been known for a long time for protecting and presenting products packaged in tubes, such as cosmetic products for example facial care creams, protective sun creams, toothpastes, and also dermo-pharmaceutical products, adhesives, foodstuffs such as mayonnaise, etc.
These tubes, particularly when they are tubes containing a cosmetic product, often have a small volume, considerably smaller than the volume of the packaging in which they are intended to be stored. For this reason, a wedging device is desirable, to hold the tube stationary in its box, during transport and the storage period.
At the present time, many packaging boxes equipped with a wedging device are available on the market. The cost of these boxes needs to be as low as possible, hence the need for their structure to be simple and for their manufacture to be easy and lend itself it automation. To this end, every attempt is made, wherever possible, to produce packaging boxes which are equipped with a built-in wedging device, made as a single piece, by cutting out a flat blank of cardboard or some other similar material. This operation is followed by successive foldings of the various portions of the flat blank of which the box is made. The box may thereafter be strengthened in a conventional way in preparation for the packaging of an object, by gluing.
FR-A-2,771,378 discloses a box for packaging an object such as a tube, this box being obtained by successive folding operations on a one-piece flat blank comprising means for wedging the object inside the box. This flat blank consists of a succession of eleven panels, joined together by parallel fold lines. Seven panels are used to form the wedging means. The box is strengthened in three gluing zones.
The manufacture of this box requires relatively complicated industrial tooling which leads to a high cost of manufacture. Furthermore, the structure of this box requires a flat blank of relatively high surface area by comparison with the volume of the box formed after the flat blank is assembled.
Another source, DE-U-299 02 027, describes a packaging box for a tube, obtained from a pre-cut and pre-folded cardboard flat blank forming four faces intended, after folding, to form the outside of a parallelepipedal sleeve. The two open ends of the sleeve comprise, as is usual, two end wall panels capable of closing the ends of the sleeve and of forming therewith the outside of the box. The flat blank further comprises a succession of six elements of substantially triangular structure. The elements extend transverse to the longitudinal direction of the blank, thereby requiring a relatively significant amount of material. These elements are arranged inside the box so as to define a “funnel-shaped” space in which the object that is to be packaged can be wedged. This box has pretty much the same drawbacks as the box described in FR-A-2,771,378.
Hence, the present invention aims to provide a box comprising a built-in wedging system, the structure of which is simplified by comparison with the boxes mentioned hereinabove, and which can be produced automatically using an inexpensive manufacturing tool.
The invention also aims to produce a box with built-in wedging, the flat blank of which is of reduced size, as compared with the flat blanks of the aforementioned boxes.
Another aspect of the invention is a box which can be knocked down flat after the wedging structures have been assembled and fixed. By virtue of this arrangement, it is possible to store a batch of empty boxes in a minimum volume, allowing the object that is to be packaged to be introduced directly thereafter, once the box has been opened up.
It should be understood that the invention could still be practiced without performing one or more of the preferred objects and/or advantages set forth above. Still other objects will become apparent after reading the following description of the invention.
To achieve these and other advantages, and in accordance with the purpose of the invention, as embodied and broadly described herein, the invention includes a box for packaging an object. The box is preferably made of cardboard or similar material, and is intended to contain at least one object, for example a tube of cosmetic product. This box is formed from a one-piece, pre-cut, substantially flat blank delimiting four faces joined together along substantially parallel longitudinal fold lines. Thus, after folding, a sleeve is formed whose ends can be closed by two end wall panels. Structure is provided for wedging the at least one object inside the box, the wedging structure being formed of a portion of the flat blank extending substantially as a longitudinal continuation of a first face. In other words, the wedging structure is a portion of the flat blank, which portion lies on the longitudinal axis of one of the faces of the pre-cut flat blank.
These wedging structures are designed so as, when the box is assembled, to partially delimit at least one housing intended to house the at least one object, the housing being of a cross-section which varies gradually over at least part of its axial height.
Advantageously, the cross section of the housing is substantially zero at a first end of the housing and substantially equal to the cross section of the sleeve at a second end of the housing which is the opposite end to the first.
Advantageously also, the wedging structure includes at least two parts inside which the housing is formed.
Advantageously, the portion forming the wedging structure is connected to this first face by a first transverse fold line.
According to one embodiment, this portion has one end adjacent to the first face, and a free end intended, when the box is assembled, to be fixed to a second face, located facing the first one. With such a configuration, the wedging structure constitute a structure that forms a housing capable of housing the object inside the structure.
Thus, the portion of the blank forming the wedging structure includes a second transverse fold line between the end adjacent to the first face and the free end, the portion being folded about the second transverse fold line before its free end is fixed to the second face, the second transverse fold line forming the end wall of a zone of the box that is intended to house the object.
Advantageously, the free end of the flat blank portion forming the wedging structure is fixed to the second face near one end of the box located at the opposite end to the second transverse fold line.
According to a simplified embodiment, the free end of the portion may not be fixed to the second face. In this configuration, the free end is intended, when the box is assembled, to rest freely against the second face located facing the first. The resting of the second end against the second face is to a greater or lesser extent dependent on the volume of the object wedged between the two parts of the wedging structure.
Alternatively, the portion forming the wedging structure is folded about the second transverse fold line before its free end is fixed to the second face so that the wedging structure comprise at least two parts on the outside of which the housing intended to house the object is formed. In this configuration, the portion is connected to the first face by the first transverse fold line, the portion forming the wedging structure comprising an end adjacent to the first face, and a free end intended, when the box is assembled, to be fixed to a second face adjacent to the first. With such a configuration, the wedging structure constitutes a struct
Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner L.L.P.
Gehman Bryon P.
L'Oreal
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