Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Hollow or container type article – Shrinkable or shrunk
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-19
2001-11-27
Dye, Rena L. (Department: 1772)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Hollow or container type article
Shrinkable or shrunk
C428S035100, C428S035200, C428S043000, C428S074000, C428S192000, C206S497000, C206S807000, C215S246000, C215S251000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06322864
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to wrapping articles, and in particular to packaging consumer goods such as foodstuffs, chemicals, cosmetics, or pharmaceuticals, which generally require consumer or user information, or indeed other information of a purely commercial nature.
More precisely, the invention relates to an envelope for wrapping at least one article such as a container, which wrapping is of the type constituted by a sleeve of heat-shrink plastics material suitable for closely surrounding at least a portion of the article, and also having an additional flap extending externally by superposition, being connected at its ends to the main portion of the sleeve via two parallel lines of heat sealing. Such a sleeve of heat-shrink plastics material serves in general to form a medium for carrying information and/or for preventing relative motion of opening and closing means (when the article is a container). The additional flap is designed in theory to be removable, and it then serves to provide additional specific information presented on the flap itself, or else on an explanatory sheet placed in the pocket formed by the flap in association with the main portion of the sleeve.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
An envelope of that type is described in the Applicants' document FR-A-2 698 851. In that known envelope, the additional flap is integral with the sleeve, and it is connected to the sleeve proper via two parallel lines of heat sealing which extend along generator lines of the sleeve, said lines of heat sealing defining the length of said flap.
The above-mentioned document provides tear means such as perforations disposed in two lines that are parallel to the generator lines of the sleeve and close to the two ends of the flap. The tear means must enable the additional flap to be detached easily without spoiling the sleeve in the separation zone where the flap is detached from the sleeve. It is possible to provide for the use of adhesive means instead of tear means, however it turns out that use of such adhesive means is difficult in practice.
Furthermore, the envelope shown in the above-mentioned document is suitable only for removing the additional flap in full, and not for removing a portion only thereof.
The above-mentioned document is a good illustration of the state of the art concerning the use of an envelope made of heat-shrink plastics material and having an additional flap provided with an explanatory sleeve disposed in the pocket formed by the flap and the sleeve. Nevertheless, it may be desired to use an additional flap forming an extension of an envelope for wrapping articles in some other way, and this is particularly true when it is desired to organize a coupon system in which one or more coupons can be detached from the envelope, e.g. for use as vouchers for immediate repayment or as vouchers for obtaining a price reduction when purchasing some other goods.
The state of the art relating to such use is well illustrated by document WO 92/02421 which shows a card envelope that is extended by an additional flap which terminates in a pull tongue that serves to break spots of adhesive organized vertically up the free end edge of the flap, so that the entire flap can finally be detached with the help of a line of perforations provided at the other end of said flap. Nevertheless, that technique is suitable only for envelopes made of reinforced paper or of card, and its teaching cannot be used for envelopes made out of a film of heat-shrink plastics material. If it were envisaged to use the same envelope structure with a heat-shrink plastics material, then two difficulties would be encountered: firstly it would be necessary to organize appropriate heat sealing along the free edge of the additional flap (capable of withstanding tensile forces encountered during shrinking), and then the pull tongue would need to be very thick, firstly to enable the line of heat sealing to be broken, and secondly to be strong enough to withstand deformation when the envelope is passed through the oven for shrinking said envelope.
Reference can also be made to document U.S. Pat. No. 4,318,235 which describes a paper label whose wall has a cutout enabling a central rectangular panel to be detached. In addition to the fact that the cylindrical envelope formed by the label does not have a flap, the teaching of that document is unusable for making an envelope out of heat-shrink plastics material since the cutout in question would not withstand shrinking forces.
Finally, the state of the art is also illustrate by documents U.S. Pat. No. 1,686,354 and BE-A-506 116.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the invention is to improve envelopes of the type described in document FR-A-2 698 851, conserving an additional flap arrangement that makes one or more portions of the flap easy to detach without damaging the sleeve, and while nevertheless withstanding shrinkage forces.
Another object of the invention is to design an envelope that can be used not only for wrapping a single article, but also for wrapping a group of articles by means of a sleeve having a plurality of compartments, in particular a sleeve made in accordance with the Applicants' document FR-A-2 637 866.
More particularly, the invention provides an envelope for wrapping at least one article, the envelope being of the type constituted by a sleeve of heat-shrink plastics material suitable for having a main portion for closely surrounding at least a portion of a single article if there is only one article, or of a group of articles if there is a plurality of articles, said sleeve also having an additional flap extending externally by superposition and being connected at its ends to the main portion of the sleeve via two parallel lines of heat sealing, wherein the additional flap has at least one reinforcing strip fitted thereto in which at least one cutout is formed to define the outline of a pull tongue whose sides extend substantially perpendicularly to the direction of the reinforcing strip, the or each cutout extending beyond said reinforcing strip in the form of two slots formed through the wall of the flap and forming tear starters, said flap also having a line of perforations or the like extending in a direction substantially parallel to the direction of the reinforcing strip and at a distance therefrom, to make it possible to detach the panel that is obtained by tearing the corresponding portion of said flap by pulling on the associated tongue.
By means of the reinforcing strip, the end of the cutout tongue thus has all of the required qualities of strength and permanence after shrinking. In addition, it becomes possible to organize the positioning and the shape of the cutout with a very wide degree of freedom, and also to provide a multi-part cutout or a plurality of separate cutouts for generating a plurality of tongues, each enabling an individual panel to be detached, in a system of detachable coupons.
In a first embodiment, the or each reinforcing strip extends along a generator line of the sleeve, e.g. by being disposed in the vicinity of one of the two lines of heat sealing connecting the additional flap to the main portion of the sleeve. The reinforcing strip can be single, extending over the full height of the sleeve, as does the line of perorations or the like under such circumstances, or else it can be made in the form of disjoint segments in alignment on a common generator line of the sleeve.
In another embodiment, the or each reinforcing strip extends along a circumferential direction of the sleeve, e.g. being disposed in the vicinity of the top edge or the bottom edge of the sleeve. In this case also, the reinforcing strip can be single, and extend over the available length of the additional flap between the two lines of heat sealing connecting said flap to the main portion of the sleeve, as does the line of perforations or the like under such circumstances, or else it can be organized as a plurality of separate strip segments in alignment on a common circumferential line of the sleeve.
P
Dye Rena L.
Friedman Stuart J.
Nixon & Peabody LLP
Sleever International Company
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