Patent Application
20140255128
Reference is made to commonly-assigned, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/558,776 (docket K001176), entitled “Producing bound document having inner cover sheet,” by C. White et al.; to commonly-assigned, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/627,217 (docket K001223), entitled: “Binding Strip including spacer,” by Y. No et al.; to commonly-assigned, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/627,266 (docket K001273), entitled: “Bound document having binding strip with spacer,” by Y. No et al.; and to commonly-assigned, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/627,303 (docket K001274), entitled: “Making bound document having fastener and spacer,” by Y. No et al., each of which is incorporated herein by reference.
This invention pertains to the field of book binding and more particularly to a system for binding a set of sheets for a media sheets.
Books and photo albums are commonly assembled from single- and double-sided printed documents and photographs. Traditional bookbinding methods include gluing or stitching a set of pages together along one edge. The bound edge is then attached to a book cover, either directly, or through attachment to a spine sheet. A spine sheet spans the spine of the cover without being attached to it, and is adhered only to the two sides of the cover. The spine sheet permits a user to fully open a finished book because it flexes separately from the spine of the cover. The bound edges of the manuscript are glued to the spine sheet or cover, and the spine sheet is glued to the cover.
However, there is an increasing number of prints made at home, or in a retail establishment. Non-traditional book-makers, including specialty presses and retail photo lab operators, have a need for a process for binding materials that does not require the expensive equipment typically used in conventional bookbinding.
Clamp- and ring-type binders, such as three-ring binders, do not have the appearance and function of conventional soft or hard covered books. Furthermore, these binders require a margin be provided in which perforations or other mounting features can be punched or placed; this margin can occupy a considerable area that could otherwise be printed with content. Moreover, sheets in these binders are susceptible to damage that permits pages to fall out, possibly without detection.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,909,141 to Staats et al., entitled “Clamp binding,” describes a binding element having a flexible clamp with slots for the sheets. Although the cover is included, there are a limited number of slots, and a limited number of sheets can be inserted in each slot. Binding by this scheme is therefore limited in use, time-consuming, and tedious.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,061,139 to Zoltner, entitled “Method for applying hard and soft covers to bound or unbound documents,” discloses a bindery system for applying hard or soft covers to form bound books. The system includes a metal U-shaped channel which is bonded to the inside spine surface of the cover. Specialized equipment is used to crimp the U-shaped channel to bind the book pages.
A number of different binding systems have been proposed that utilize spring clamp mechanisms. U.S. Pat. No. 5,716,181 to Ebel, entitled “One piece self-binding system for binding documents,” discloses a binding system for use in a home environment that utilizes a spring binding to clamp pages into a bound book. A retaining piece is provided to hold the spring binding open until the pages are in place. The retaining piece is removed to clamp the pages into the book cover. U.S. Pat. No. 7,757,358 to Hoarau et al., entitled “Sheet retention mechanisms for spring clamp binders,” discloses a system for binding pages together using a spring clamp mechanism. U.S. Pat. No. 7,798,736 to Hoarau et al., entitled “Media binder arrangements,” discloses a media binder that includes spine clamps for securing the media pages. A tension sheet is used to transmit an opening force to the spine clamp. The components of such systems are generally too expensive and complex to be useful for producing low-cost photo books in a retail environment.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,685,415 to Rush et al., entitled “Bookbinding method,” describes an adhesive matrix with a release liner. A cover is adhered to exposed adhesive after the release liner is removed. However, this scheme can leave a noticeable offset (at least the thickness of the matrix) between the endpapers at either end of the book. This can be objectionable. It also requires using a fixture to heat the adhesive matrix to attach to the inner sheets.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,326,018 to Huotari, entitled “Method in glue-binding and a band for use in glue-binding,” describes a bundle of paper glue-bound to form a book. A glue band is wrapped around the bundle and heated to bind it. However, this scheme requires special equipment to wrap the glue band in a way that will not leave wrinkles or air bubbles in the band. Such wrinkles or bubbles would be perceptible to the touch of a person holding the book by the spine to read it, and could cause undesirable distraction or an impression of a lower-quality product.
Commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 8,182,188 to Manico et al., entitled “Book and a method of making same,” which is incorporated herein by reference, describes an instant book binding system and book cover for rapidly binding single- or double-sided documents, photographs, pages, and other forms of hardcopy media into soft or hard cover books. The finished books retain the appearance and function of conventional mass produced soft and hard covered books. The method employs a book cover having a front cover, a back cover, and a spine section, wherein the spine section includes an adhesive strip having a release strip, the adhesive strip having a first side contacting the spine section. A first portion of a media clamp is attached on an inside surface of the front cover, and a second portion of the media clamp is attached on an inside surface of the back cover. The book cover is opened to expose the adhesive strip, and the assembled media is placed against the at least one release strip. The assembled media is clamped using the media clamp by closing the front cover and the back cover against the assembled media, and the release strip is pulled to remove it from between the adhesive strip and assembled media.
European patent document EP342957 by Dwyer et al., entitled “Binding system,” describes binding sheets together using a pressure-sensitive adhesive. However, this scheme uses an adhesive spine, so does not provide full wrap-around covers.
There remains for a low-cost method to bind a set of sheets to form an attractive and durable photo book without the need for special purpose equipment or highly-trained operators.
The present invention represents a binding system for binding a set of media sheets including a front media sheet, a back media sheet, and one or more interior media sheets, each media sheet having a respective spine portion extending along a respective spine edge, comprising:
a binding strip having a spine edge and a free edge opposite to the spine-edge, the binding strip including:
a plurality of pinching devices adapted to fasten together the binding strip and the set of media sheets by pinching them together in their respective spine portions;
wherein when the binding system is adapted to bind the set of media sheets by:
This invention has the advantage that a bound book can easily be assembled without the need for specialized equipment or highly-skilled operators.
It has the additional advantage that the use of a releasable fastening strip enables media sheets to be added to or removed from the bound book at a later time after the book is initially bound.
The attached drawings are for purposes of illustration and are not necessarily to scale.
The invention is inclusive of combinations of the embodiments described herein. References to “a particular embodiment” and the like refer to features that are present in at least one embodiment of the invention. Separate references to “an embodiment” or “particular embodiments” or the like do not necessarily refer to the same embodiment or embodiments; however, such embodiments are not mutually exclusive, unless so indicated or as are readily apparent to one of skill in the art. The use of singular or plural in referring to the “method” or “methods” and the like is not limiting. It should be noted that, unless otherwise explicitly noted or required by context, the word “or” is used in this disclosure in a non-exclusive sense.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0278831 to Huotari et al., entitled “Binding back and a method for protecting the binding edge of a sheet block, as well as a binding formed from the sheet block and the binding back,” discloses a binding system similar to that illustrated in
Commonly-assigned U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0248753 to Mindler, entitled “Binder clip,” and the related U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0251269 to Mindler, entitled “Binder clip,” both of which are incorporated herein by reference, describe a binding system that can be used to bind printed media sheets into a book (e.g., a photo book). The binding system includes a binder clip having flexible sidewalls biased to close around a rigid retainer for securing pages wrapped around the retainer or pinched by the binder clip and retainer to manually form a book.
The present invention will now be described with reference to
The front media sheet 102 and the back media sheet 104 are typically book covers and may be made from a different type of media stock than some or all of the interior media sheets 106. The front media sheet 102 can optionally include a book title 240 (see
The binding system includes a plurality a binding strip 210 adapted to wrap around spine edge 102 of the set of media sheets 100. The binding strip 210 has a spine edge 218 and a free edge 219 opposite to the spine-edge 218. The binding strip 210 is formed using a flexible substrate and has an interior surface 211 and an exterior surface 212. (The “interior” and “exterior” qualifiers are used in the sense of the position of the surfaces when the binding strip 210 is wrapped around the spine edge 102.) The binding strip 210 includes three different regions: a spine portion 213 extending along the spine edge 218, a fastening portion 215 extending along the free edge 219, and a wraparound portion 214 between the spine portion 213 and the fastening portion 215. A releasable fastening strip 216 is provided on the interior surface 211 of the binding strip 210 in the fastening portion 215. As will be described in more detail below, the releasable fastening strip 216 is adapted to releasably attach the binding strip 210 to the back media sheet 104.
As shown in
Next, a plurality of pinching devices 220 are used to fasten together the set of media sheets 100 and the binding strip 210 in their respective spine portions 109 and 213 as shown in
In a preferred embodiment, optional spacers are provided having exterior surface profiles substantially matching exterior surface profiles of the fastened pinching devices 220, wherein the spacers are inserted between the fastened pinching devices 220 around the spine edge 108 of the fastened media sheets 100. In
Next, the free edge 219 of the binding strip 210 is wrapped around the spine edges 108 of the fastened media sheets 100 as indicated by the dashed arrow in
In the illustrated embodiment where the spacer halves 230 are added to provide substantially flush surfaces with the pinching devices 220, the wrapped binding strip 210 conforms to the flush surfaces so that the bound book 250 has a bound edge 255 with a substantially smooth look and feel as shown in
In cases where the optional spacers (e.g., spacer halves 230) are not used, the stiffness of the flexible substrate would need to be relatively high to cover over the gaps between the pinching devices 220 without producing noticeable valleys. In this case, it may be desirable to score the wraparound portion 214 of the binding strip along lines corresponding to the upper and lower edges of the wrapped spine edges so that the binding strip 210 will naturally fold at the appropriate locations.
In some embodiments, the binding strip 210 further includes a cushioning layer covering the interior surface 211 of the flexible substrate in the wraparound portion 214. The cushioning layer is adapted to conform to any residual irregularities in the surfaces formed by the pinching devices 220 and the spacer halves 230 so that the exterior surface 212 of the wrapped binding strip 210 is smooth.
The exterior surface 212 (
In some embodiments, a book title 242 can be provided in an appropriate location on exterior surface 212 of the wraparound portion 214 of the binding strip 210 so that the book title is visible on the spine of the bound book 250 as shown in
Next, the binding strip 210 is attached to the exterior surface of the back media sheet 104 by bringing the releasable fastening strip 216 into operative contact with the back media sheet 104, thereby providing a bound set of media sheets 100 as shown in
In some embodiments, the releasable fastening strip 216 includes a pressure-sensitive adhesive that can be pressed against the back media sheet 104 to attach the binding strip 210 to the back media sheet 104. An example of a pressure-sensitive adhesive that can be used for this purpose is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,012 to Luhmann et al., entitled “Use of a strip of an adhesive film for a re-releasable adhesive bond.” A protective release strip can be provided over the pressure-sensitive adhesive which can be removed by the user before the releasable fastening strip 216 is attached to the back media sheet 104.
In some embodiments, a pressure-sensitive adhesive can also be provided on the interior surface 211 of some or all of the wraparound portion 214 of the binding strip 210. In this way, the binding strip 210 can be releasably fastened to the spine edges 108 of the fastened media sheets of the fastened media sheets 100, providing a more stable binding. In some embodiments, the wraparound portion 214 and the fastening portion 215 can be covered with a single extended fastening strip 216.
An alternate arrangement is illustrated in
Conventional binder clips typically include pivotable wire handles inserted into loops along the pressure edges 226 that can be used as levers to spread the clip faces 224 apart so that the media sheets 100 can be inserted. Such handles are undesirable for use in the present application because they will interfere with the binding strip 210. Furthermore, the loops provided along the pressure edges 226 are typically formed on the exterior surfaces of the clip faces, which would be undesirable for use in the present application because the exterior surface of the clip faces 224 would not be flat.
To overcome these disadvantages associated with conventional binder clip, the exemplary pinching device 220 of
In this case, each clip face 224 includes a retractable tab 320 that can be selectively slid in a direction parallel to the respective clip face 224 between a first tab position shown in
After the media sheets 100 have been inserted, the retractable tabs 320 can be slid to the second tab position such that they do not protrude past the clip spine 222 as shown in
The invention has been described in detail with particular reference to certain preferred aspects thereof, but it will be understood that variations, combinations, and modifications can be effected by a person of ordinary skill in the art within the spirit and scope of the invention.
