Special receptacle or package – For holding a machine readable recording medium – For holding a grooved phonograph disc
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-13
2001-09-04
Sewell, Paul T. (Department: 3728)
Special receptacle or package
For holding a machine readable recording medium
For holding a grooved phonograph disc
C206S308100, C206S309000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06283284
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cases for retaining disks therein. More particularly, the present invention relates to storage cases for securely retaining compact disks (CD), digital-video (or digital versatile) disks (DVD), and other mass storage devices therein. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to such storage cases including means for fixing the disk in place within the case. The present invention relates to a disk storage case having a pivotal flap for removably retaining the disk thereon.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The proliferation of optically readable mass storage media, such as CDs, computer Read Only Memory (ROM) disks, and, more recently, DVDs, has generated the need for relatively inexpensive cases for safely storing such disks therein. The most popular standard case for CDs is the jewel case, a transparent hinged three-part structure designed to retain the disk within. The jewel case has essentially become the industry standard for CDs. Its design has been used to define a portion of the CD manufacturing and packaging process. Specifically, the automated equipment used to form and enclose CDs in a case having informational, marketing, etc., graphical materials inserted therein, is designed to fit such materials within the faces of the case, and to fit the completed CD onto a stationary hub that fixes the CD in place within the case.
For the most part, the standard CD jewel cases are formed of three parts—two open-faced frames hingedly connected together, and a hub plate having a centered hub designed to fit within the inside diameter of the CD center hole. One of the frames has two opposing sidewalls, each of which has one or more tabs for retaining informational booklets, marketing booklets, or the like, and a transparent frame face for observing such materials therethrough. Each of the opposing sidewalls of that frame also includes a corresponding pivot nub for pivotal coupling to the second frame. The second frame of the standard existing jewel case includes a pair of opposing sidewalls, a pair of opposing endwalls, and a transparent frame face. It is to be noted that the frame faces of the respective open-faced frames define the length and width of the jewel case. The second frame is designed to retain therein graphical materials observable through the transparent frame face and through the transparent endwalls. The second frame includes means for removably fixing the hub plate therein, and its sidewalls have opposing corresponding indentations for receiving the nubs of the sidewalls of the first frame for pivotal movement thereof.
Different jewel cases manufactured by different suppliers may have hub plates of different designs. For the most part, however, they include a round depression sized slightly larger than the CD within which the CD sits. A relatively flexible rosette or hub rises from the centered of the depression and is designed to be of about the same size as the inside diameter of the center hole of the CD. The hub is typically designed to have some give such that when the CD is positioned in the depression and on the hub, there is a tight fit between the hub and the CD. In this way, the CD is supposed to remain within the depression of the hub plate until the user pops the CD off of the hub in a manner well known to most of the general population.
Unfortunately, in the automated process of making and packaging CDs, as with most automated manufacturing processes, there are many variables than can result in product outcome vagaries. Two areas of concern in regard to the present invention relate to the manufacture of the hub and the manufacture of the CD. Specifically, the hub to which the CD is removably joined may vary in dimensions as a function of the batch of material used to make the hub and its associated plate, the rate at which the hub plate is processed in the molding equipment and variability of the tools used to form the hub. Similarly, the CD manufacturing process and the process of moving the CD through an automated packaging process is a complex one. The CD is formed by first creating an emulsion-based mold having formed therein pits and peaks used to establish specific optically readable variations corresponding to desired electrical signals. A CD forming material, such as polycarbonate, for example, is then applied to the mold so as to create the CD structure.
DVDs are formed in a similar manner; that is, an emulsion-based mold is first created with the surface variations (pits and peaks) used to establish mirror-image peaks and pits in the surface of material that becomes the DVD. However, in order to increase the storage capacity of the storage medium, a pair of molded disks are joined together using a bonding material or mechanism suitable for the particular material used to form the disks. The effect, then, for a CD or a DVD is to create one or two layers of material designed to allow the passage of light therethrough on to the modified surface for reading of the variations corresponding to digital signals.
Clearly, given the complexity of the process, there are ranges of hub dimensions and CD or DVD aperture diameters. As a result, it is not uncommon for these disks either to be too loosely or too tightly coupled to the hub. That is, in those instances where the hub diameter is slightly smaller than nominal and the aperture inside diameter is slightly larger than normal, the disk may slip off the hub and fall unexpectedly out of the container or case upon opening. Alternatively, and more commonly, the hub diameter is slightly larger, the aperture is slightly smaller, or a combination of the two, and the disk fits tightly on the hub. In that situation, the user must exert considerable energy and cause a bending of the disk in order to pop it off the hub. This flexing of the disk can cause crazing of the disk material, as well as separation of joined disks in the case of DVDs. Such forms of damage to the structure of the disk will result in misreading of the intended surface variations, rendering the disk unusable. The effects of structural damage caused by bending of the disk are magnified as digital signals are generated in double and greater densities (double-density disks) for a given surface area, and when such surface variations are applied on both surfaces of the disk (double-sided disks). Further, for the two-layer disk structures, the bending can cause a shifting of those layers with respect to one another. This can lead to the two being out of concentricity with one another, thereby affecting the aperture dimensions and causing surface variation misreadings.
One recognized solution to the problem of forced bending was described by Gelardi et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,480. Gelardi teaches a disk storage container having a pivotal tongue on which the disk resides when retained in the container. When the container is opened, the tongue pivots outwardly so as to “present” the disk to the user. As with the prior standard CD containers, the Gelardi structure is formed of four components, the base, the pivotable lid that encloses the CD when clamped onto the base, and a CD hub plate, and a tongue that detachably connects to the base and the lid. The tongue is formed of a plurality of pieces and does pivot, but only a limited distance, away from the base when the lid is opened.
While the tongue of the Gelardi container provides a desirable solution to the problem of the suitability of the fit between the hub and the CD, there are several deficiencies in that design that make it less than commercially desirable. First, the Gelardi container does not lend itself to the standard automated disk packaging processes in existence. Specifically, the pivotal disk holder is fixed to the base and to the lid in a manner that permits it to move up to a limited angle away from the base. The maximum distance that the holder moves away from the base is insufficient to allow standard automated graphics insertion equipment to place information materials into th
Crane Robert
Lovecky Craig
Arnold Troy
Atwood Pierce
Caseiro Chris A.
Scanlon Patrick R.
Sewell Paul T.
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