Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Hollow or container type article
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-17
2003-12-23
Pyon, Harold (Department: 1772)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Hollow or container type article
C383S033000, C383S034000, C383S104000, C383S200000, C383S205000, C383S207000, C383S906000, C206S218000, C222S092000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06667081
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pouch capable of storing a fluid content such as liquid, viscous fluid or powder, and particularly to a discharge-improved pouch provided with a pouring portion having a narrow width in which the pouring portion is improved in expanding ability and configuration-keeping ability, which is preferably applicable to, for example, a pouch for refilling its content into a refill container.
The present invention further relates to a method of producing a film to be used as material forming the above mentioned pouch.
The present invention still further relates to an easy open pouch which is provided with an improved half-cut line as an opening aid to facilitate opening of the pouch, and particularly to an easy open pouch which is facilitated in opening to such an extent that the pouch is easily torn along the half-cut line when an opening operation, and in addition improved in safety of storage to such an extent that it hardly causes spontaneous tearing on the ordinary handling such as a manufacturing process or a transporting or distributing operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a pouch for refill which stores and seals up a fluid content such as liquid, a self-standing pouch incorporating with features of a three-dimensional container as well as self-standing ability has been conventionally used, and various technical efforts are adapted to the pouch in order to pour a content from the opened pouch into another container without spill. For example, an opening is made by cutting out only a corner of the pouch, and an upper portion of the pouch is not entirely cut out. Alternatively, a narrow pouring portion is formed at one position of the upper portion of the pouch, or a separately formed pouring parts such as a plastic mold product is mounted at one position of the upper portion of the pouch.
The manner to cut out the corner of the pouch is easy, but it is difficult for this manner to control pouring direction of the content. In particular, when the content is poured into a container having a small opening such as tapered bottle, an opening of the pouch which is small and flexible is liable to get off the aimed opening of the container during a course of pouring to spill the content out, thereby causing problems in easiness and safety of pouring.
As to the other manner in which a separately formed pouring parts such as a plastic mold product is mounted at one position of the upper portion of the pouch, this manner needs many steps to produce the pouch, and also causes high cost of the pouring parts it self. In addition, since the pouch provided with the separately formed pouring parts is relatively thick, cost for storing or transporting gets expensive. Further, when the content is filled into such a pouch, number of empty pouches to be stacked in a feeder of a filling machine is reduced because of a large thickness of the pouch, and an operator has to frequently supply them into the feeder. Accordingly, this manner causes problems of a large cost and a complicated process.
If the rest in which a narrow pouring portion is formed at one position of the upper portion of the pouch is adapted, it is possible to expect a certain improvements in handling and safety of pouring. However, when the pouring portion formed in such a manner is torn and opened, the thus formed opening of the pouring portion is not easily expanded, and flow of pouring is not steady. In particular, when an amount of the remaining content gets small, the opening of the pouring portion is liable to spontaneously close, and if the pouch is pushed in this condition in order to push out the content, the content may flush and spill out. Accordingly, Even this manner also causes the problems in easiness and safety of pouring operation.
On the other hand, as an easy open pouch, there has been conventionally known a pouch in which a notch having an optional shape is formed at an end portion of an opening position. The notch serves as a start point of tearing to facilitate opening of the pouch. However, since the notch can not control tearing to be developed in a constant direction, it is difficult to tear the pouch along a cut line indicating desired direction only by the notch.
In order to solve this problem, for example, use of the notch is combined with a manner in which the pouch is formed from a lamination film having an intermediate layer made of an uniaxial oriented film, an oriented direction of which is aligned with a direction of the cut line (a tearing direction), or a manner in which half-cut line is formed along the cut line.
However, the manner using the uniaxial oriented film causes an expensive cost of a material. Besides, when the cut line is set inclined with respect to an axis of the pouch, it is difficult to align the oriented direction of the film with the cut line.
As to the other manner forming the half cut, since irradiation of a laser beam is available to carry out this manner, an initial cost of a laser machine is expensive but a running cost is cheap, and it is easy to form a half-cut line of any direction, thereby providing advances in those points.
However, an opening position extends from a seal portion present at one side of the pouch to the other seal portion present at an opposite side of the pouch, and a middle of the opening position is non seal portion corresponding to a storing space. Therefore, when the half-cut line is formed at such an opening position, a tearing direction is made steady so as to be torn along the half-cut line, but a tear strength at the seal portion becomes larger than that at the non seal portion as the middle portion, thereby requiring a strong force at beginning of tear.
To the contrary, when the half-cut line is made deep by increasing a power of the laser beam, a tear strength at the seal portion is reduced and tearing is made easy, but a tear strength at the non seal portion as the middle portion is also reduced and gets excessively weak. Accordingly, such a pouch is liable to be broken from the half-cut line by some impact, thereby causing a problem in safety.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention has been achieved in order to the above described problems, and a first object of this invention is to provide a pouch, particularly a pouch for refill, in which it is not necessary for production of the pouch to separately form a molded poring parts, and it is possible to produce the pouch at a good productivity as well as a low cost through a process similar to that applicable to an ordinary pouch, and when an end portion of a pouring portion formed at a corner of an upper portion of the pouch is cut out, thus formed opening of the pouring portion easily expands and keeps its configuration, and when a content is poured out, the opening of the pouring portion is prevented from spontaneously closing, and it is possible that the content of the pouch is safely and easily poured into a bottle having even a small opening until pouring is completely finished.
A second object of this invention is to provide a method of producing a film to be converted into the pouch concerned with the first object.
A third object of this invention is to provide an easy open pouch excellent in safety and productivity, in which a half-cut line having an improved shape is formed at a tearing position of the pouch, and it is possible to easily tear the pouch along the half-cut line at the time of an opening operation, and breakage or splitting of the half-cut line is not caused on the ordinary operations in a production process or a distribution stage, and the pouch is applicable to various pouches including a flat pouch such as a three-side sealed type or a four-side sealed type, and it is particularly applicable to a pouch liable to get an actual torn direction off the intended cut line, such as the pouch concerned with the first object because of its bulge portion. The bulge portion will be explained herein after.
A first aspect of a first invention to achieve the first object provides a
Aoki Yukitaka
Kanamori Taeko
Kojima Izumi
Komoda Seiichiro
Nakagome Takashi
Chevalier Alicia
Dai Nippon Printing Co. Ltd.
Ladas & Parry
Pyon Harold
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