The disclosed device relates generally to a squeeze bottle for dispensing of a liquid. More particularly it relates to a flexible squeeze bottle configured for both upright and inverted use, which includes a rotatable dispensing turret, and may also include a safety positioning requirement to prevent use by children, and a tamper seal providing a visually discernable signal if the bottle has been tampered with prior to purchase.
Plastic squeeze bottles for dispensing cleaners, soaps, and other liquids have been manufactured for many years and are well known. Such bottles are employed for soaps, shampoos, cleaning solutions and hundreds of other uses. Most such flexible bottles where the dispensing component is conventionally engaged to a centered opening in the bottle, are configured primarily for upright use, or use in a vertical disposition. They are unable due to the dispensing component engaged to the bottle, to disperse liquid from the bottle in and direction but substantially along the axis of the bottle to which the dispensing component is engaged.
There other flexible bottles configured to be employed in an inverted positioning, and dispense the liquid in the bottle at a direction traverse to the axis of the inverted bottle or even at an upward angle from the inverted dispensing component and bottle. Such bottles are employed for instance when communicating cleaning solution on the bottle to the underside of a rim surrounding a toilet bowl. Bottles employed for this inverted positioning are employed widely and in order to provide this inverted dispensing of fluid, have a gooseneck appearance where the opening to the bottle and the dispensing end are positioned at the distal end of a curved neck portion of the bottle.
However, bottles with curved ends leading to the opening have a number of problems. First, they are not well adapted to simply be used in an inverted positioning to for instance, disperse shampoo into one hand of a user while being held by the other hand. Due to the curved neck, they inherently dispense the fluid at and angle whereby the user must hold one hand spaced from the other horizontally, rather than in the normal fashion where the hand receiving the fluid is located inline with the longitudinal axis of the dispensing bottle.
Another more vexing problem for manufacturers of fluid products contained in such gooseneck style bottles, is that the filling neck of a bottle with a curved portion leading to the bottle opening, is disposed at an angle to the longitudinal axis of the bottle when standing upright on the bottle base. Machinery employed to fill bottles with fluid in factories work well and fast where the bottle opening is in line with the bottle axis. However, when the bottle opening is at an angle traverse to the bottle axis, and spaced therefrom by the distance of the curved portion of the bottle, special machinery is required to fill the curved neck bottles causing increased cost and a limiting of choice of bottlers to provide service since most do not have the assembly-line capacity to fill curved neck bottles.
Consequently, providers of liquids which are sold for dispensing at an angle traverse to the axis of the bottle, are left with few options as to the bottlers they use. Further, the cleaners used and dispensed from many such curved neck bottles, are the same liquid used for other cleaning tasks in the home. However users must purchase two different bottles for the same cleaner if they wish to have one for dispensing inline with the axis of the inverted bottle in a normal fashion, and one bottle to dispense liquid at an angle away from the axis of the inverted bottle. Also, manufacturers must purchase, fill, ship, and sell two types of bottles for similar or the same cleaning solution.
Still further, cleaning solutions, soap, shampoo, and other liquid product dispersed from such containers, can be hazardous to children should they come in contact with them or ingest them. Conventional containers whether for inline dispensing from an axially located dispensing component, or from a dispensing component which is engaged to a curved neck, ideally should provide a safety cap configuration to prevent children from coming into contact with the contents.
As such, there is an unmet need for a fluid container which is configured with an opening for filling and engagement of a dispensing component, which is located along the longitudinal axis of the container. Such a container should be employable for the dispensing of cleansers as well as shampoos and cosmetic products and the like to eliminate the need for manufacturers to use multiple container styles. Such a fluid container should have a dispensing component which is employable to dispense fluid to the hand or person of the user, or, in a stream at an upward angle from the inverted container. Such a fluid container should be configured with components rendering it child-resistant, to help prevent children from coming into contact with the contents or ingesting such. Still further, such a container should include a tamper-resisting component which will alert a buyer that the container has been tampered with prior to purchase.
With respect to the above, before explaining at least one preferred embodiment of the squeezable fluid container herein in detail or in general, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of employment and to the arrangement of the components or the steps set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The various apparatus and methods of the herein disclosed container invention are capable of other embodiments, and of being practiced and carried out in various ways, all of which will be obvious to those skilled in the art once the information herein disclosed is reviewed thereby.
Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting. Consequently, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception upon which this disclosure of an improved fluid container is based, may readily be utilized as a basis for other fluid containers. It is important, therefore, that the embodiments, objects and claims herein, be regarded as including such equivalent construction and methodology insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
The disclosed squeeze bottle device overcomes the noted shortcomings of the prior art, through the provision of a bottle which is fillable through a filling neck located along the longitudinal axis of the bottle in an upright position, and is employable in an inverted position to dispense fluid either at an upward angle to place it onto an underside target, or to simply dispense fluid into the hand of a user. The device thus will thus serve the purpose of dispensing fluid such as shampoos, soaps, detergents and the like from the outlet and onto the hand or a target immediately adjacent the outlet, and, allow for the projection of contained fluid to a remote target which is above and adjacent the outlet of the dispenser when the bottle is inverted.
Thus the bottle can serve the purpose of the conventional curved or gooseneck bottle, as well as a conventional soap or detergent bottle in one container. Further, in eliminating the need for the curved neck, the disclosed bottle herein can be filled in factories with conventional bottle filling equipment for fill necks located along the longitudinal axis of the squeeze bottle. This eliminates the need for manufacturers to have two bottles for the same or similar products, and, allows for the filling of a bottle which will project fluid at an upward angle from the inverted dispenser, on a conventional bottle filling line for axially located fill necks.
In addition to providing a dual use fluid bottle, the disclosed device may also have a child-resistant component which will help prevent a child from contacting or ingesting the contents of the bottle. Currently such is provided by requiring a collar component of the cap engaging the neck of the bottle, to be rotated. In such rotation, a first marker or indicia such as an arrow on the collar, must be aligned with a second marker or indicia on the bottle, otherwise a dispensing component which is rotationally engaged with the cap collar, will not rotate to a dispensing position and as such, will prevent fluid from being dispensed therefrom.
Additionally employable with the disclosed bottle herein, is the provision of a component to alert a buyer in case tampering has occurred with the bottle prior to purchase or use by the user. Currently such a tamper alerting component is a detachable member engaged to the collar of the cap. The detachable member covers a portion of the marker used to align the collar with the marker on the bottle. Further, the detachable member is spaced from the exterior surface of the circumference of the cap collar such that it will not allow rotation of the collar to reach an alignment of the marker on the collar and the mating marker on the bottle.
It is an object of this invention, to provide a squeeze bottle which is capable of dispensing fluid contents when inverted, at an upward angle which is traverse to the axis of the inverted bottle.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a bottle which will angularly dispense when inverted, but which has an axially located filler neck allowing for filling therethrough.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide the aforementioned improved bottle which is also adapted to be child-resistant to prevent contact or ingestion of the bottle contents with a child.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide the noted bottle herein, with a visual alert to tampering with the bottle for buyers and users thereof.
The foregoing has outlined some of the more pertinent objects of the improved container or squeeze bottle device herein provided by the disclosed apparatus and system herein. These objects should be construed to be merely illustrative of some of the more prominent features and applications of the intended invention. Many other beneficial results can be attained by applying the disclosed system and apparatus in a different manner or by modifying the invention within the scope of the disclosure.
Accordingly, other objects and a fuller understanding of the invention may be had by referring to the summary of the invention and the detailed description of the preferred embodiment in addition to the scope of the invention defined by the claims taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
Referring now to
As can be seen in
Also shown is a first marker 26 positioned on the bottle 12 which must be aligned with a second marker 28 positioned on the collar 20 of the cap assembly, in order for the contents of the bottle 12 to be communicated to and dispensed from the dispensing aperture 24. The requirement of rotation of the collar 28 to align the second marker 28 with the first marker 26, which allows for a rotation of the nozzle 22 in its engagement with the collar 20, wherein fluid within the bottle 12 is dispensable from the nozzle 22 provides a child-resistant mode to the device 10 to prevent dispensing of the liquid within the interior cavity (not shown) of the bottle 12 unless or until the two markers are aligned, and, the nozzle 22 is rotated to a dispensing position, in its engagement with the collar 28.
A particularly preferred ability of the device 10 herein, is shown in
Consequently, the device 10 herein provides exceptional utility in that the bottle 12 is can be filled with fluid with conventional bottle filling equipment reducing costs and expanding distribution potential for the child-resistant device 10. However, in an inverted dispensing positioning such as in
In
In
However, this depression of the first end 36 of the nozzle 22 and resulting rotation or pivoting of the nozzle 22 on the axle 31 engaged with a race in the collar 20, to position the nozzle to a dispensing position, is prevented, until the first marker 26 is aligned with the second marker 28, thereby preventing fluid dispensing until the markers 26 and 28 are aligned and the nozzle pivoted.
The alignment of the two markers 26 and 28 by rotation of the collar 20, concurrently aligns at least one projecting member 40 with a recess 42, formed into the body of the bottle 12. As depicted, (
As such, it is the alignment of the two markers 26 and 28 which aligns the projecting members 40 with the recesses 42 which allow the user to depress the first end 36 of the nozzle 22 to rotate it in engagement with the collar 20 to a depressed or dispensing position. Consequently, fluid communication through an internal fluid pathway communicating between the interior of the bottle 12 and dispensing aperture 24 is blocked when the nozzle is in the first position of
In the depressed position of the nozzle 20, fluid from the interior of the bottle 12 when inverted and squeezed, will communicate from the interior cavity of the bottle 12, through the formed fluid pathway in the nozzle assembly 18, to exit in a fluid stream 30 from the device 10.
One mode of fluid dispensing is shown in
As shown in
The components of the nozzle assembly 18 are shown in various positions to better depict operation thereof. In
In
In
However, when the nozzle 22 is rotated to the depressed position noted above, the seal 60 disengages from the distal edge of the annular projection of
In
However, until such removal of the tab 67 and pillar 69, the second marker 28 is substantially covered from viewing by the user and alignment with the first marker 26. Further, until removed, the tab 67 also will prevent rotation of the collar 20 to align the first marker 26 with the second marker 28 because the tab 67 will contact a shoulder 71 formed on the exterior surface of the bottle 12 adjacent the dispensing end.
While all of the fundamental characteristics and features of the disclosed squeeze bottle have been shown and described, a latitude of modification, various changes and substitutions are intended in the foregoing disclosure. It will be apparent that in some instance, some features of the invention may be employed without a corresponding use of other features, or steps may be rearranged for operations, without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth. It should be understood that any such substitutions, modifications, and variations, which might be made by those skilled in the art, without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention as disclosed herein are considered included within the scope of the invention as defined herein.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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5314093 | Gross | May 1994 | A |
6382469 | Carter | May 2002 | B1 |
6971547 | Englert | Dec 2005 | B2 |
7530476 | Downey | May 2009 | B2 |
8418892 | Geier | Apr 2013 | B2 |
9260237 | Brace | Feb 2016 | B2 |
20020113097 | Harriman | Aug 2002 | A1 |
20050184093 | Brunerie | Aug 2005 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20160257461 A1 | Sep 2016 | US |