Bottles and jars – Closures – Frangible member or portion
Patent
1981-02-27
1982-10-26
Norton, Donald F.
Bottles and jars
Closures
Frangible member or portion
B65D 4134
Patent
active
043557309
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
As a result of ever-increasing sales in self-service stores, it has become necessary to indicate the first opening of a container in order to show that some of the content has been removed. The problem is to prevent the unobserved checking of the content of such containers, followed by the return thereof to their original position, so that the person who finally purchases the container does not acquire it in its original full state. This problem is particularly serious with non-transparent containers. It is admittedly impossible to prevent the removal of the cap, but is must at least be made clearly visible that this has taken place. To an increasing extent, caps with a seal or guarantee strip are being increasingly used in this connection, the latter being either destroyed at the time of first opening or it becomes disconnected from the cap, so that the container in question can be withdrawn from sale.
The requirements made on such a seal can be summarized as follows. not be prohibitive. visible damage to the cap, the seal or the connection vbetween them. without fulfilling feature (b). its destruction. prevent mechanical fitting by conventional filling and sealing machines and requires no additional equipment.
Numerous proposals have already been made in this field. Generally, they only fulfilled points (b) and (c), but it is important that due attention be paid to the other points, particularly the material expenditure referred to under (a). The reason for this is that in view of the vast number of caps produced even the slightest amount of excess material will lead to a vast increase in the overall manufacturing costs.
Numerous screw caps with guarantee rings for indicating the first opening of the container have been proposed. In one of these, the guarantee ring in the form of a thin strip passes round the screw cap substantially around its complete periphery and over most of its surface area. It is connected to the cap at individual points and in one constructional embodiment has a smooth surface on the inside and outside. Due to the smoothed inner surface, the ring does not adhere to the screw cap during the relative rotation of the latter. Therefore, it must be removed before the cap can be unscrewed. The visible indication of the first opening is brought about by the fact that the thin strip is creased, crumpled or even torn by the pressure of the user's fingers.
The procedure adopted by the present invention differs from this. It is in particular intended to ensure that linear contact with the cap or guarantee strip does not, as mentioned under (d) lead to damage to said strip. It is impossible to completely exclude said contact either during the packing of the containers into the boxes or receptacles used for dispatch purposes or when unpacking the containers at the point of sale. However, if the guarantee strip or its connection to the cap is damaged, then the particular container must be withdrawn from sale, even if in reality it has not been opened.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a cap in which the requirements according to point (e) (mechanical fitting) are fulfilled, i.e. without modifications to the fitting and sealing mechanism of the filling machine and without using additional devices.
The screw cap according to the present invention is characterized in that the guarantee ring has a height which at most corresponds to half the height of the screw cap and has a thickness which is greatest at the connecting points of the guarantee ring to the cap while decreasing away from the connecting points.
An embodiment is represented in the attached drawings, wherein show:
FIG. 1 a side view of the cap, partly in cross-section and partly with a broken-away guarantee ring.
FIG. 2 a plan view of the cap.
FIG. 1 shows a container 1 with a fitted screw cap 2 surrounded by a ring 3, shown in section in the left-hand half of the drawing and partly broken away in elevation in the right-hand half. It is connected to the screw cap by means of a random number of thin or narrow bridges or
REFERENCES:
patent: 3504818 (1970-04-01), Crisci et al.
patent: 3650428 (1972-03-01), Miller
patent: 3747793 (1973-07-01), Wassilieff
patent: 3924769 (1975-12-01), Fillmore
Norton Donald F.
Wiedmer Ernest
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