Fluent material handling – with receiver or receiver coacting mea – Portable systems or track mounted supply means
Reexamination Certificate
2001-04-23
2004-05-04
Douglas, Steven O. (Department: 3751)
Fluent material handling, with receiver or receiver coacting mea
Portable systems or track mounted supply means
C141S094000, C141S114000, C222S105000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06729369
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In general, the present invention relates to the packaging into a suitable container and transport over some distance, of fluids in liquid form destined for use in a “downstream”, or subsequent, manufacturing/product-fabrication/test process. This disclosure is, by and large, not concerned with the transport and administering of medical solutions for mammalian use/consumption (including intravenous delivery of medicines and nutrients to humans and other mammals). But rather, the present invention relates to the novel containment for shipping and ultimate dispensing (preferably gravity fed) for ready use in a manufacturing/product-fabrication/test process (whether the process is deemed part of a commercial enterprise or done in a basic-research facility), of “fluent” substances from the same flexible vessel—without the need for mid-stream staging containers. The flexible walls of the vessel have an outwardly-facing identification indicia (for purposes of tracking/quality control and inventory) and are preferably made of a flexible material compatible with the fluent contents. A portable framework is used to support the vessel when dispensing its contents.
The filling of polymeric bags with liquids for storage and dispensing is not, by itself, new. Modern human and veterinary medicine conveniently uses intravenous fluid (“IV”) bags for bedside administration of medicine, nutrients, and other solutions (water, saline solution, dialysis solutions, etc.) to patients in hospitals, nursing-care facilities, clinics, mobile critical-care transporters (life-flight helicopters, ambulances, and medically-equipped airplanes), and to patients who are well enough to have been sent home. Apart from the medical use of polymeric bags-at least one thin flexible bag having a “tent structure” and a multi-component specially-designed dispensing valve has been patented in the U.S. The bag is filled with still wine, shipped, and stored intact until a keeper ring is stripped away so that a sharp plunger is free to thrust inwardly to pierce the bag. Although the patent indicates this tent structure bag can stand up on a table for dispensing, it has not been seen in general use. But rather, wine bags seen in kitchen refrigerators are supported by rectangular cardboard boxes designed for dispensing in a horizontal orientation.
On a much different and greater scale than this, one finds the instant invention. It addresses a need specifically identified by the inventor hereof in the manufacturing/production/test arena (whether for commercial production and/or basic research) for less-costly ways to ship and dispense solutions used in the commercial manufacture, research/bench-testing, fabrication for laboratory/research use, and so on, of products. In the past, the design efforts of storage and transport containers have been driven, by-and-large, by the requirement that the walls of the containers be compatible with the solutions contained therein (such as reagents, organics, cleaning/sterilizing solutions, pesticides, etc.). Glass bottles, although very breakable and heavy to transport, have primarily been the container of choice due to the relative stability of glass and the compatibility of glass with so many solutions. And, while wall-compatibility is an important design consideration of storage vessels (due to the need to use containers made of materials that are substantially inert with respect to corrosion and do not leach extractables into the solutions they contain)—wall-compatibility can no longer be the only major design consideration of solution storage vessels. This is especially true as shipping and handling costs continue to sharply increase; such costs include the additional labor of skilled technicians that must be employed to properly measure/dispense and carefully use (without contaminating) the solutions, the cost of brittle-container breakage during shipment and/or use, as well as costs associated with the sheer weight of hard walled containers.
Due to the ingenious effort and targeted problem identification, the novel apparatus and method of containing for transport and dispensing a fluent substance as well as the novel method of building an order for replenishing stock, disclosed herein, are targeted to processes performed in connection with commercial as well as basic research purposes-including the fabrication and/or analysis/test of products and constituents thereof, whether the product is headed for commercial sale; bench-testing of products and their constituents; beaker cleaning; and so on.
As one can appreciate, unlike the instant invention, known hard-walled storage containers used for transporting solutions delivered to a manufacturing plant or research environment generally require a substantial amount of labor-intensive packing material to surround the containers in order to ship them any distance using common carriers. Although there have been a couple of reagent bags patented as designed for specialized test equipment, these designs do not accommodate large-scale production or bench-test/laboratory use of reagent solutions. Surprisingly, there simply is no adequate low-cost storage-for-transport alternative to the hard-walled containers (made, mostly, of glass and brittle plastics) currently being used for shipping the large quantities of solutions used day-in and day-out in manufacturing and research facilities.
The new apparatus for transporting a fluent substance and method were developed to address the problems associated with shipping heavy, breakable hard-walled containers which are cumbersome to use and store in a manufacturing/test environment. The new apparatus and method, as designed, offer a lower-cost and less labor-intensive alternative that utilizes space more-efficiently while at the same time provides sufficient durability. As can be appreciated, in the spirit and scope of suggested design goals (whether expressly communicated herein) and as described further, the flexible-walled vessels can be fabricated from many suitable materials into many different shapes and sizes, filled with countless different types of reagents, cleaning solutions, solvents, pesticides and other fluent substances, then transported to, and used in, production/test environments (including food production) throughout the world.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is a primary object of this invention to provide an apparatus and associated method for transporting in a flexible-walled vessel a fluent substance for ready dispensing there-from during a production/product-fabrication/test process (whether deemed part of a commercial enterprise or done in a basic-research facility). The vessel, which has an upper-end and a lower-portion having at least one port through which the fluent substance is dispensed, can be oriented by a support framework for the dispensing. It is also an object of this invention that such an apparatus and method utilize a valve of some type for controlling the dispensing of a preselected amount of the fluent substance during the process. A further object is to provide a method of building an order for replenishing stock of a fluent substance contained in a flexible-walled vessel having an indicia.
The advantages of providing the new apparatus and associated new methods are as follows:
(a) The inventive vessel is preferably used for one-time dispensing of its contents (and, thereafter, disposed-of). A vessel may be reused by refilling with an identical fluent contents for another dispensing (reuse depends on the level of sterilization needed for its fluent contents, as well as the structural integrity of the flexible material). Regardless of reuse, vessels are preferably reclaimed by recycling the flexible material after its contents has been dispensed.
(b) Versatility—The invention can be used for dispensing reagents, cleaning solutions, solvents, pesticides, etc., used in a wide range of production/testing environments to carry out associated processes (whether carried out as part of a commercial enterprise or done in a basic-research facili
Neas Edwin D.
Templar Dennis L.
Chata Biosystems, Inc.
Douglas Steven O.
Macheledt Bales LLP
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