Removable insert assemblies and methods for making

Details Removable insert assemblies and methods for making Removable insert assemblies and methods for making

2002-09-20

2004-03-30

Carter, Monica S. (Department: 3722)

Printed matter

Having revealable concealed information, fraud preventer or...

By removeable material

C040S606040, C206S232000, C281S015100, C281S038000, C283S061000, C283S081000, C428S042300

Reexamination Certificate

active

06712398

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention is directed to an assembly of a label and a substrate, and to a method for making it, wherein the label assembly has an oversheet attached peripherally to the substrate so as to define a zone between the oversheet and the substrate. The oversheet can capture an inserted item such as a folded product information sheet, which is intended to be extracted by a consumer who tears away a portion of the oversheet. The oversheet preferably is substantially clear and is attached at perforated edge strips to the substrate. The assembly is useful for providing product information to consumers, for example as an attachment to a product, package, promotional handout, ad in a publication, etc.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Insert-receiving label assemblies can be useful in a number of situations in which a supplemental item needs to be carried on a substrate. The substrate might be a product or product container. The substrate could also be a sheet such as a printed promotional brochure or mailing. The insert might be a small product sample, a supplemental publication or instructional sheet, etc.
Supplemental publications or instructional sheets are particularly useful for distribution with or in connection with regulated products such as medicines, pesticides, potentially poisonous or dangerous substances and the like. These products may have extensive associated warnings, contraindications, instructions for use, instructions for amelioration of accidents, and the like. Even with relatively small print, the printed area that is needed for copies of the instructions, warnings and the like, might take more space than the entire surface area of the product packaging or the product promotional material involved. It is undesirable to obscure a product brochure or a product package wholly with cautionary information or this type.
For these and similar products, a folded up printed item advantageously is packaged and distributed together with the products and/or is affixed as some sort of addendum to promotional pieces. In the case of promotional pieces (e.g., mailings, magazine pages, handouts), the promotional piece may typically be a brightly printed glossy advertisement with pictures and logos. The informational material may typically be a black-and-white printed portion with small font size, either placed in an inner part of the advertisement (e.g., at the end) or contained in one or more separate sheets that are included. One technique is adhesively to attach envelope-like packages to the promotional pieces, the packages containing the warning sheet as a folded insert. The user tears open the envelope to obtain access to the insert.
Apart from inserts in envelopes affixed to printed promotional sheets and mailings, a similar supplemental item can be affixed to products or their packages, such as consumer products. Inserts are apt for product packages for the same reasons as above, namely to provide printed information that cannot advantageously be printed on the product or the container for the product.
Pharmaceutical products that are sold over the counter generally have some associated warnings and often are sold as vials or other containers packaged in boxes together with patient information inserts in the form of folded paper printed sheets. Frequently, such an information sheet or brochure is discarded with the box when the container is removed from the box. As a result, if a need for detailed information arises later, the printed sheets are no longer available.
Several ways are known to attach a detailed information sheet or leaflet as described, to a product container. The attachment could be more or less permanent, depending on expectations for how it will be used. Once the information sheet or leaflet is detached, and assuming there is no outer container or box, it is likely that the information sheet will be permanently separated from the product and lost.
Some similar problems are confronted with respect to product information sheets that are used with advertising brochures. Such brochures are used as handouts, mailings and the like. They are advantageously composed and printed in bright and attractive colors. They are advantageously associated with detailed information sheets or leaflets in small print, containing warnings that are perhaps necessary but that detract from the appearance of the brochure. U.S. Pat. No. 6,270,121 discloses a brochure with a removably attached product information patch for containing such an information sheet or leaflet. The product information patch consists of a base label that has adhesive applied over its surface facing the brochure, whereby the base label is permanently affixed to the brochure. A small-print folded product information sheet is contained between this base label and an over-laminated cover sheet. The folded product information sheet is spaced inwardly from the outer edges of the base label. The over-laminated sheet is secured to the base label over the product information sheet and adheres to the base label between the outer edges of the base label and the product information sheet.
The foregoing structure forms a closed envelope containing the product information sheet, affixed flat on the surface of the brochure. (Presumably it could likewise be affixed on the surface of a product or product package.) The over-laminate sheet can have perforations on opposite sides of the product information sheet. To obtain access to the product information sheet, the user tears the over-laminate apart at the perforations and extracts the product information sheet, leaving the base layer and any undetached portions of the over-laminate attached to the primary substrate, in this case a promotional brochure. The base layer typically remains attached to the substrate, as does at least the peripheral part of the over-laminate, after the product information sheet has been extracted. Separation of the over-laminate at the perforations generally removes any structure that could hold the product information sheet to the base label, so the envelope is only useful until the product information sheet is first removed. Normally that is sufficient for a product information sheet with a promotional brochure because after review of the brochure, and optionally also the product information sheet, the brochure and information sheet are both usually discarded.
It may seem complicated to have a base layer, a product information sheet and a perforated over-laminate attached to the brochure or other substrate, when one might simply glue an edge of the product information sheet to the product. However, there are some structural advantages to having the folded information sheet captured in a flat package. In addition to preventing the information sheet from unfolding inadvertently, a continuous web of such flat packages can be made and the roll can be handled substantially the same as a roll of mailing labels. The flat packages can be fed from the roll onto the brochures, such that an adhesive bearing side of each package is placed against and adheres to the surface of an associated brochure.
Each flat package in U.S. Pat. No. 6,270,121, as described above, has two distinct sheets affixed together from opposite faces of the product information sheet. It is also possible to use one integral sheet in a similar manner, except to fold the integral sheet to form one of the edges of the flat package. That structure could potentially avoid the need for a glue joint at the fold, but without any adhesive would need some functionally similar attention (e.g., hot rolling along the edge) to form a crisp flat fold.
More complicated envelopes are also known, wherein there are additional web layers, glue joints that extend part way across the area of contact between web layers, joints that are intended to capture just an extreme edge of a product information sheet and so forth. However it would be advantageous if product of this type could be improved, potentially even to simplify them, without contributing to the complexity of their structure and

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