Special receptacle or package – Shock protection type – With yieldable retainer
Reexamination Certificate
2002-09-20
2004-09-07
Ackun, Jr., Jacob K. (Department: 3712)
Special receptacle or package
Shock protection type
With yieldable retainer
C206S594000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06786334
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to product cushioning devices for use in packaging shock sensitive products. In particular, the invention relates to re-usable or recyclable product cushioning devices which are made from plastics material, and which are particularly intended for use with shock sensitive products such as computers and computer components—particularly hard drives, CD and DVD drives, and the like. The configuration of cushioning devices in keeping with the present invention is particularly as a top or bottom tray, or an end cap. Product cushioning structures in keeping with the present invention comprise unitary structures which may be molded from a plastic material, using a variety of molding techniques.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The use of product cushioning devices for shock sensitive products has been known for many years. Typically, cushioning for shock sensitive devices comprises a number of different approaches, each of which may have its own particular advantages and/or disadvantages.
For example, it has been known for many years to wrap shock sensitive or delicate devices or merchandise in tissue paper, and to cushion the products with loosely balled tissue paper. Another use of paper has been shredded paper, or excelsior. A more elegant approach has been to use bubble-pack, which comprises a sheet material having a plurality of contained bubbles of air formed therein. Another approach which has been used for many years has been the use of a plurality of discrete molded foamed polystyrene pellets, sometimes referred to as “peanuts” in the industry, to fill around a product in a container.
As the requirement for better packaging and cushioning became more demanding, for example with the introduction to the market of complicated and expensive electronics devices such as computer monitors, and more particularly notebook computers, printed circuit boards, and the like, the requirement arose for more sophisticated and better shock absorbing cushioning devices. Standards were developed for acceptance of cushioning devices, including drop tests and the like, to determine if such devices would protect the shock sensitive product from shock acceleration greater than the product's fragility level—typically, from 20 g's to 100 g's.
This has given rise to the use of such products as honeycomb cardboard, and particularly foamed polystyrene, foamed polyurethane, foamed polypropylene, or foamed polyethylene. Flexible foam devices are well known for use as corner pieces or edge pieces. Likewise, foamed polystyrene products—which are more rigid—are also well known for use as corner pieces or end caps; and very often, they are product specific in that they are particularly molded having a specific configuration for use with a particular product.
In general, however, flexible foam cushioning devices, and foamed polystyrene cushioning devices, are not recyclable. There are several reasons for that condition: The first is that flexible foam cushioning devices, and polystyrene cushioning devices, tend to be quite bulky, and are usually discarded with the packaging container in which the product has been shipped. There are very few specific recycling depots that are set up for either flexible foam or especially polystyrene cushioning devices; and, in any event, foamed polystyrene and foamed polyurethane cannot generally be recycled. Its re-usability may be provided for, particularly as general corner pieces, if they remain intact, or as product specific end caps; but, unless such foamed polystyrene cushioning devices are being used in a closed shipping system, they will not be recovered for re-use. Moreover, foamed polystyrene cushioning devices tend to be very frangible, and do not maintain their integrity very well once they have been used and removed from the packaging container in which they are shipped.
More elegant cushioning devices have more recently entered the market, comprising different types of blow-molded or other plastics shell products, most of which are closed structures which are filled with air or other gas. Some such structures are inflatable, some are closed, and some may be open to the atmosphere but are formed of a relatively rigid material. All such products are generally formed from high density polyethylene, which may be recycled because it is easily chopped up and made into further products, or such products may be re-usable if they are employed in a closed delivery and recovery system. Low density polyethylene may also be found in products such as those described immediately above, although its use is quite limited at the present time.
Some manufacturers of computer components such as hard drives, in particular, have an intent to ship accessories together with hard drives, in the same package, so that the accessories are co-packaged with the hard drive. The same holds true, particularly, for CD and DVD devices. The accessories will very often include such as a floppy disk or a CD, a mounting bracket, appropriate cables, and the like.
It is often desirable to package such accessories as those referred to above with the device with which they are associated, so as not to get lost or separated from the device. Indeed, distributors of such devices, and the like, may wish to include even further accessories such as additional software, special mounting brackets for their computer boxes, and the like, together with the device being shipped and protected by the protective packaging structures of the present invention.
Typically, additional accessories of the sort referred to herein, and others, are shipped in an additional corrugated cardboard box, or with a corrugated cardboard divider, or they are packaged with foam beads, or with an additional specially formed foam end cap, and the like. However, such packaging and shipping requires additional bulk of the shipping container within which the shock sensitive device is being shipped, they require additional material such as corrugated cardboard boxes or dividers, or foam, and they require additional shrink wrapping materials and the like.
Thus, a purpose of the present invention is to provide protection for shock sensitive devices without employing additional packaging material. In the event that the shock sensitive device is dropped or mishandled, use of the present invention precludes damage to the shock sensitive device such as might happen due to the impact of an accessory having substantial mass, for example a power cord or an instruction book—or an accessory might otherwise pierce a corrugated cardboard divider—such as a mounting bracket—and cause damage by scratching or otherwise damaging the case or exposed components on printed circuit boards which are often found at one side of shock sensitive devices such as hard drives and the like.
Moreover, all embodiments of the present invention, as described in greater detail hereafter, will provide cushioning and shock force absorption and/or transmission, and thus shock absorbing protection, for whatever shock sensitive product they are being used with, in three mutually perpendicular directions or along three mutually perpendicular axes for which shock absorption protection is required- vertical, front-to-back and side-to-side.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
U.S. Pat. No. 2,874,826 issued to MATTHEWS et al is directed to a shock and vibration isolation device which, however, is not intended for being incorporated in a rectilinear container. Rather, this device is a resilient and inflatable jacket comprising a plurality of chambers, made of a rubberized fabric which is adapted to hold a gas under pressure, and which will be wrapped around a shock sensitive device such as a guided missile so as to provide a shock and vibration isolation container therefor.
GOBAN U.S. Pat. No. 3,294,223 teaches a molded plastic corner piece having the configuration of a triangular polyhedron which is either rounded or flattened at its apex. The purpose of the corner support is to entrap air between the molded plastic corner piece and the corner
Ackun Jr. Jacob K.
Cahn & Samuels LLP
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