Packaging of smoking articles

Details Packaging of smoking articles Packaging of smoking articles

1999-05-12

2001-05-29

Foster, Jim (Department: 3728)

Special receptacle or package

For tobacco, pipe or cigarette holder

Sheet-formed receptacle

Reexamination Certificate

active

06237760

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to the packaging of smoking articles such as cigars, cigarillos and cigarettes. They will be referred to herein for brevity and clarity as cigarettes.
Cigarette packs fall into two broad classes rigid and soft. Soft packs are more common in the USA and Japan. They are as the name implies formed essentially of soft sheet materials. Rigid packs, more frequently encountered in Europe, have an outer shell of card to contain a charge of cigarettes.
The rigid type allows for good protection of the cigarettes and of any inner wrappings such as a barrier layer provided to hinder moisture ingress or escape, but they are quite complex in construction and assembly and can be a significant cost factor.
Soft packs are simpler and cheaper but there is more risk of damage to the contents in transport or handling.
The present invention proposes a new form of packaging for cigarettes which may be described as semi-rigid.
In the prior art, various reinforcement or protective sheets have been placed between a charge of cigarettes and an outer wrap.
GB-A-2264483, for example, shows a folded cap of card placed over the vulnerable ends of a charge of cigarettes.
GB-A-1514174 has an inner liner with front and back panels linked through a base panel, and side panels, forming an open-ended box within an outer wrapper. EP-A-633202 shows an external open-topped box into which a wrapped charge is inserted.
GB-A-918388 has a largely rigid box within a wrapper but one side panel of the box is not secured as in a conventional pack and can be depressed inwardly so as to allow severance of the outer wrapper for access to the cigarettes.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,755,579 has a frame around a charge of cigarettes that is overwrapped with tin foil or equivalent.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In the packaging of the invention a pack of cigarettes has a frame of card or equivalent material with a major panel, two side flaps and at least a partial end flap placed adjacent a face, sides, and at least part of at least one end, respectively, of the charge of smoking articles, and a flexible barrier sheet wrapping the charge end frame and sealed around them, as in GB-A-1514174 as far as a single end flap is concerned. In the invention, however, all of the sealed seams overlie at least partly a part of the frame.
The frame is preferably open and may be channel-like (that is, the side flaps are not linked except through a sole major panel), but will have at least partial end flaps. There is usually no rigid shell outside the flexible sheet, though the pack may have an outer wrap, outside the sealed barrier sheet of, for example, a transparent plastic or cellophane, to give protection to the pack-forming sheet and, if desired, barrier properties.
The barrier sheet is a barrier material such as a metal foil/plastics laminate or a metallised plastics film. It is sealed to form an enclosure around the charge and frame which is as far as practical hermetic. Formation of sealed seams in a wrapping of barrier layer, especially on the sides of a pack, is assisted by the presence of the side panels of the inner frame which abut against the cigarettes of the charge and spread the pressure exerted by the sealer on them. This is especially useful when the charge has different numbers of cigarettes in different rows, as in a 7-6-7 array, when otherwise a channel would tend to be formed in the sides.
The pack will be provided with means for giving access to the charge of cigarettes; there may be a tear strip around at least part of the pack circumference near the end intended to be its top end so that part of the sheet may be wholly or more preferably only partly separated. In the latter case the inner frame may include, integrally or separately, an internal lid-defining portion to facilitate reclosure of the pack.
Separation for the purpose of access may be provided for, or assisted by, line(s) of weakening or partial cuts in the pack-forming sheet.
A sealed enclosure may be resealable. In that case, an access aperture is defined in the barrier layer and a cover is provided which may extend over the aperture and engage the barrier layer adjacent all sides of the aperture. The cover has a permanently tacky surface for engaging the barrier layer, allowing the packaging to be resealed after accessing the cigarettes through the aperture.
The wrapper or barrier layer may be continuous over one minor end of the pack or charge, and have side seams along both minor sides of the pack and an envelope or similar fold over the opposite minor end. The layer need not be applied in that manner—it can equally well be applied so as to be continuous over one minor side and sealed over both minor ends and one minor side.
Various patterns of heat sealable portions of barrier layer, achieved by the application of glue, lacquer or the like to the barrier material, can when heat-sealed with each other or with the barrier material form an enclosure which is as near as possible hermetic.
Furthermore, flavourant may be provided in the permanently tacky adhesive used for resealing such a barrier layer. Thus, a quantity of the flavourant will be released each time the cigarettes are accessed. This contrasts with previously known systems (such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,249,676) which release only a single burst of flavourant, on initial opening of the packaging.
The flavourant is preferably micro-encapsulated, each action of disengaging the tacky surface from the barrier layer causing a proportion of the micro-capsules to be ruptured, and so release their contents. U.S. Pat. No. 4,720,423, again relating to a one-off flavourant release system, describes how flavourant-bearing micro-capsules may be incorporated into adhesive.
By flavourant is meant any substance which releases, produces, neutralises, masks or alters odours, for example a perfume or deodorant.
Flavourant may alternatively or additionally be incorporated into an integer which is included inside the wrapping. The integer may be of a porous substance, for example a pad, a paper sheet or may be the card inner frame of a semi-rigid pack. Alternatively, the flavourant may be encapsulated or included in a sachet, the capsule or sachet being included within the packaging.
This flavourant may permeate the cigarettes included within the packaging, so as to affect the taste or odour of smoke produced when smoking the cigarettes. A preferred such flavourant is menthol.
Flavourant may be incorporated into both a resealable adhesive layer (outside a barrier layer) and an insert (inside the wrapping). The flavourants may be the same, so that their effects reinforce, or different, for example to provide one flavour on opening the packaging and a different flavour in the cigarette.
We also disclose an inner frame, particularly suitable for the resealable packaging of this invention. Such an inner frame has panels which are foldable relative to each other to form four at least partial faces of a cuboid including one major face, and additionally has a flap or flaps which form(s) an incomplete fifth face of the cuboid.
In a preferred configuration, the frame has a major panel, two elongate side wings and a (bottom) end panel, and two flaps. The long edges of the side wings and the end panel are the major edges and a minor edge, respectively, of the major face. The flaps are at the top ends of the side wings. Thus, upon folding, the frame forms a major face, two long side faces and a bottom end face of a cuboid, with the flaps forming two parts of an incomplete top end face.
It is preferable that the major face is not a complete rectangle, but has a recess in the top edge. When such a recess is present, it is further preferable that the end panel is shaped so that two blank, unfolded, frames placed end-to-end tessellate (i.e. can lie next to each other without overlaps or gaps) thus minimizing the amount of material needed.
When this inner frame is used in a resealable pack, the aperture in the barrier sheet through which cigarettes may be accessed preferably overlies the reg

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