The present invention relates to a box formed from a single piece of cardboard sheet, the closed box having high resistance to deformation and comprising an inviolable security seal which is broken when the box is opened for the first time.
Many types of boxes are known provided with a security seal, the purpose of which is to make it evident by simple external examination that the initially closed box has already been opened for the first time, or to cause a portion of the box lid or a portion of the box itself to separate after initial opening, to prevent its reclosure.
Boxes of this type are described, for example, in EP 0709293 B, EP 1340684 B and in the corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 6,860,421 B, EP 1538090 A and in the publication US 2006/0124708 A1, all in the name of the present applicant.
All the security seals illustrated in the known patents, including the aforestated, can however be violated if the boxes are opened with great care using thin metal blades to raise and deform small portions of the box or of its lid.
Boxes formed from a single piece of cardboard are generally of parallelepiped shape and are closed or closable by rotatable lids, formed from the same piece of cardboard.
EP 1826129 A2 and the corresponding U.S. Ser. No. 11/622,724, also in the name of the present applicant, describe a box formed from a single piece of cardboard and comprising an internal supplementary wall which defines—inside the box—a supplementary pocket or cavity adjacent to that outer side wall of the box which faces or opposes that box wall from which the two box closure lids or panels project, the function of this supplementary pocket being to divide the box internal cavity into two separate parts: it is important to note that said internal supplementary wall of the box has no stiffening function (or deformation resistance increase) for the closed box structure.
An object of the present invention is therefore to form a box, obtained from a single piece of cardboard sheet, which is provided with an inviolable security seal, i.e. such that access can be gained to the box interior (after its initial closure) only after the seal has been broken, hence making it apparent to the naked eye that the box closure lid (or lids) has/have been opened for the first time.
Another object is to form a box provided with an inviolable security seal in which the box has high resistance to deformation when closed and its security seal is intact.
These and other objects are attained by a box formed from a single piece of punched and crease-lined cardboard sheet, the box being of substantially parallelepiped shape with four outer side walls, two lids for closing two box ends and each projecting from one end of one of said side walls, and a supplementary wall inside the box close to that box side wall opposing the side wall from which said lids extend, of which at least one is divided into an end panel and into a free lip by a folding line substantially parallel to a folding line which separates the said end panel from that box side wall from which it extends, characterised in that from at least one free edge of said supplementary panel there extends at least one hook-shaped appendix the free end of which is widened, in the end panel of the box lid on the same side as said shaped appendix there being provided at least one cut close to the folding line which separates it from the respective free lip, said cut having a length less than the width of the free end of said hook-shaped appendix which passes through and extends beyond the cut when the box lid is closed, at each of the two ends of said cut in the lid panel there being provided in the cardboard a hole which extends from each end of said cut towards the outside of the cut and into the lid lip, there being provided in the cardboard at least one preferential breakage line formed from at least one cut or knurling which at least partially incises is the cardboard, said preferential breakage line being provided either on said shaped appendix or on said box lid between the respective end panel and free lip, or on both of them.
Preferably and advantageously, the length of the supplementary panel considered as the distance between its opposing free edges is less than the length of that outer box side wall opposite the side wall from which said lid extends.
By virtue of its structure the box, when its lids are closed, assumes high rigidity and deformation resistance, enabling (inter alia) the use of cardboard sheets of thickness, weight and cost less than those required to form similar boxes, but without the characteristics of the box of the present invention.
Moreover, by virtue of the fact that said hook-shaped appendix extends within the box, when closed, and through the cut provided in the corresponding lid end panel, and is hooked (after being passed beyond the two holes provided at the ends of the cut) onto the panel outer surface, an absolutely inviolable seal is formed which is broken (when the box is opened for the first time) along the preferential breakage lines provided in the cardboard.
A preferred embodiment of the box is described hereinafter by way of non-limiting example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
Figures from 2 to 4 show said cardboard piece in its successive folding and gluing steps to give a finished box, ready for despatch to a box user firm;
Finally it should be noted that from the opposing free ends of the panels 2 and 4 there project flaps 18 divided from such panels by folding lines or crease-lines 19 perpendicular to the lines 8-13, as is usual in known boxes similar to that described herein.
The punched and crease-lined cardboard piece described up to this point is substantially equal to that of known boxes, for example that represented in EP 1826129 A2 and in the already aforestated corresponding US patent application.
To shape this cardboard piece into a box, the end panel 7 is firstly turned onto the secondary panel 6 (by rotating it about the folding line 13), then a glue strip 21 is applied to that surface of the panel 1 facing upwards (
The panel 5 is then rotated (about the folding line 8) so that it rests on the surface of the panel 1, while the panel 6 rests partly on the said panel 1 and partly on the panel 2, the glue strip 21 making the end panel 7 securely adhere on the panel 2 (
A glue strip 23 is then applied to the upwardly facing surface of the panel 5, after which the panel 3 is rotated about the folding line 10, to become superposed on the (upwardly facing) surface of the panel 6, whereas the panel 4 becomes superposed on the panel 5, to be fixed to it by the effect of the glue 23 (
At this point, the cardboard processing firm which has produced the box has terminated its work and stacks of boxes in the state shown in
In
The lid is then rotated about the folding line 16 (
The box structure and the characteristics described up to this point are known per se, as can be seen from the said EP 1826129 A2.
The new inventive characteristics of the box of the present invention will now be described. From the drawings, it will firstly be noted that from the free edge of the supplementary panel 6 there projects a hook-shaped appendix 50, the free end of which is widened and which (preferably but not necessarily) is separated from the panel 6 by a preferential breakage line 57 (see
It will be apparent that just one shaped appendix or more than one shaped appendix could project from just one or from both the opposing free ends of the panel 6.
It is also important to note that in the end panel 14 of the box lid (which extends from the same side of the shaped appendix 50) a cut 60 is provided (in practice the number of cuts 60 provided is equal to the number of shaped appendices 50) close to the folding line 17 which separates it from the respective free lip 15 (see
Having now described the general structure of the box, the functional characteristics will now be explained, starting for simplicity from a consideration of the figures subsequent to
When the lip 15 of the lid is folded towards its panel 14 (
It follows that, when the box lid is closed, to pass from the state of
When the box is closed (
When the box is to be opened, the lid panel 14 must be rotated outwards in the direction indicated by the arrows A in
Predetermined breakage lines can be provided only along the narrowest part of the shaped appendix 50, or at the folding line between the panel 14 and its lip 15. In all cases a security seal is obtained which is totally inviolable and is reliably broken when the box is opened for the first time.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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MI2007A1758 | Sep 2007 | IT | national |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20090072018 A1 | Mar 2009 | US |