Surgery – Means and methods for collecting body fluids or waste material – Absorbent pad for external or internal application and...
Reexamination Certificate
1997-12-31
2001-02-27
Weiss, John G. (Department: 3761)
Surgery
Means and methods for collecting body fluids or waste material
Absorbent pad for external or internal application and...
C604S370000, C604S378000, C604S385270
Reexamination Certificate
active
06193701
ABSTRACT:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
Not Applicable
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT
Not Applicable
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
Personal care articles such as infant diapers, training pants, adult incontinence products, and the like are well known. Such articles have achieved a wide acceptance due to their ability to receive and absorb body exudates. This invention pertains to personal care articles and especially to their stretch characteristics at different zones of the respective personal care articles. For instance, a personal care article should have a desired stretchability, resistance to stretch, and resilience, across waistband sections or adjacent leg openings.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In general, personal care articles should comfortably fit the body of a wearer. Conventional personal care articles are made using materials for e.g. an outer cover and a bodyside liner, thus to make a substrate which is generally non-stretchable, or stretchable only to a limited degree such as up to no more than about 50%. Thus, the primary substrate materials, from which such personal care articles are made, lack resilient stretch characteristics which are desired at the waist and at the leg openings. Accordingly, conventional personal care articles generally have resiliently stretchable waist elastic elements secured about the waistbands of the articles. Likewise, personal care particles generally have leg elastic elements disposed at opposing sides of the crotch portion adjacent leg cutouts. Such waist elastics elements and leg elastics elements are used to provide desired levels of extensibility and retractability to the personal care articles in the waistband region, and in the crotch portion, respectively.
When, as in the personal care articles of the invention, one or more of the materials used to make the outer cover and the bodyside liner is resiliently stretchable greater than 50%, e.g. up to at least 300%, it is still desirable to provide the same amounts for stretch, resistance to stretch, and resilience, as are provided for in conventional personal care articles. Thus, while resilient stretchability is desired in the waist and leg areas, too much stretch, or too little resistance to stretch, are no more acceptable than too little stretch or too much resistance to stretch. Accordingly, where the amount of stretch is greater than desired, or where the resistance to stretch is less than desired, in e.g. a stretchable outer cover or a stretchable bodyside liner, suitable modifications to the respective outer cover or bodyside liner should be made in order to provide the desired level of stretchability, and resistance to stretch.
SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE
Applicants' invention defined herein, provides the desired level of resilient stretch, and the desired resistance to stretch in personal care articles which include resiliently stretchable outer covers and/or resiliently stretchable bodyside liners. Such stretchable elements are embossed to provide the desired levels of stretch in the selected areas. For example, stretch in the waistband section can be reduced by embossing the stretch outer cover in the waist area. Such embossing increases the resistance-to-stretch in the embossed area whereby the resistance to stretch in the embossed area is greater than the resistance-to-stretch in other zones of the article.
Therefore, unlike the addition of elastomeric elements, or treatment of materials to increase stretch, as was known in the prior art, in applicants' products and processes, modifications are made to the materials used in the personal care articles of the invention thereby to decrease the amount of stretch or elasticity, thus to increase the resistance to stretching, in the so-treated areas or zones of the personal care articles of the invention.
Thus, the present invention relates to a personal care article comprising an outer cover resiliently stretchable in at least one direction. At least a first portion of a first zone of the resiliently stretchable outer cover has a pattern of embossments, effective to reduce or otherwise limit or control stretching of the outer cover in the first zone, thereby to provide a first set of desired properties pertaining to the amount of stretchability, and resistance to stretch of the outer cover. The outer cover has a second separate and distinct zone wherein the outer cover is not modified to provide the first set of limitations. The embossments in the first zone thus cause the so-treated portion of the outer cover in the first zone to have a different resistance-to-stretch than the respectively untreated, or lesser treated, portion of the outer cover in the second zone.
In some embodiments, the outer cover has resilient stretchability in at least the cross-direction in the front portion of the personal care article, the outer cover having a first waistband section in the front portion and a second waistband section in the rear portion, the first zone comprising the first waistband section in the front portion of the personal care article, the first waistband section providing the first set of desired stretch properties pertaining to the amount of stretch in the waistband section.
In some embodiments, the second zone comprises an area of the outer cover spaced inwardly from the first waistband section.
In some embodiments, the personal care article is devoid of added waist elastic elements.
In some embodiments, the outer cover is resiliently stretchable in at least the cross-direction in the rear portion of the personal care article, a second waistband section comprising a third zone in the rear portion having a greater resistance-to-stretch than the second zone.
In some embodiments, the outer cover includes a fourth zone and a fifth zone, effectively embossed at portions thereof such that the fourth and fifth zones have greater resistance-to-stretch than the second zone.
In some embodiments, the fourth zone is adjacent a first outer edge at least in the crotch portion and the fifth zone is adjacent a second opposing outer edge at least in the crotch portion, the fourth and fifth zones optionally extending along the length of the crotch portion in the longitudinal direction.
In some embodiments, the personal care article is devoid of added leg elastic elements in the crotch portion, the fourth and fifth zones providing the properties of leg elastic elements.
In some embodiments, the first zone comprises a plurality of spaced embossments forming an array of such embossments.
In some embodiments, the array comprises at least two rows of spaced points. In other embodiments, the array comprises a series of spaced lines or other configurations.
In some embodiments, the personal care article has a front edge at the front portion, and a rear edge at the rear portion, the outer cover being substantially unfolded at the front edge and the rear edge.
In some embodiments, the personal care article includes an absorbent structure superposed on and operably connected to the outer cover, thereby to form an absorbent personal care article, the absorbent structure including a substantially liquid impermeable backsheet, a liquid permeable bodyside liner superposed on the backsheet, and an absorbent core disposed between the bodyside liner and the backsheet.
In some embodiments, extendible attachment elements secure the absorbent structure to the outer cover while allowing resilient stretching of the outer cover along the cross-direction.
In some embodiments, the extendible attachment elements each have at least one pleat that connects the absorbent structure to the outer cover.
In some embodiments, the outer cover is intermittently embossed in the first zone.
In another embodiment, the personal care article comprises a first panel, a second panel resiliently stretchable in at least one direction, the second panel being in surface-to-surface relationship with the first panel, the first and second panels, in combination, defining a substrate, a first portion of a first zone of the second panel having a pattern
Huang Yung Hsiang
Van Gompel Paul Theodore
Zehner Georgia Lynn
Kidwell Michele
Kimberly--Clark Worldwide, Inc.
Weiss John G.
Wilhelm Thomas D.
Winkelman Michael L.
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