The inventions described herein relate to closure devices, and in particular, relate to a cap and liner (such as a tamper indicating seal or membrane) combination for bottles. The preferred cap of the present inventions is at least partially transparent or translucent to allow a customer to perceive a printed or colored liner or membrane through the cap at the point of purchase.
To identify the contents of a bottle, it is well known in the art to use opaque, colored caps, to apply adhesive backed labels to the top surface of a cap, and/or to print directly on the top of the cap. In the field of bottling and selling milk, bottlers use different colored caps to differentiate one kind of milk from another; i.e., red caps may be used to designate whole milk, light blue for skim milk, and yellow for 1%, etc. Colored caps are also used to designate different kinds of juices or different flavors of beverages.
To provide a liquid-tight seal on a bottle, it is well known in the art to use a seal, or liner, in combination with the cap. Cap suppliers often sell their colored caps with the liners placed on the inside of the cap. Because the liner is pre-installed on the inside of the cap, the liner is pressed against the bottle neck into intimate contact with the lip of the bottle opening when the cap is applied to the bottle. Two types of liners are generally in use today with blow molded bottles. The first type of liner is made of a soft pliable sealing material, such as a foam. The second type of liner, a foil liner, has a heat sensitive surface which can be heated into sealing engagement with the lip of a container neck by induction heating to form a membrane sealing the container closed.
In the bottling industry, it is well known to include tamper-evident features. With blow-molded bottles, bottlers often incorporate two levels of tamper evident features. A first level is incorporated into the design of the cap and a second level is incorporated underneath the cap. For a first level of tamper evidence, caps on bottles sold to consumers include an integrally formed (i.e., injection molded) feature such as a ratchet ring for threaded caps and a pull-tab for push-on caps. For a second level of tamper evidence, liners are often used. In particular, bottlers often use a liner that can be heat sealed around the opening of the bottle. The heat sealed liners are tamper evident in that, once the liner is removed from the lip of the bottle opening, the liner cannot be easily reattached to the bottle opening. Therefore, upon opening the bottle at home, the consumer can ascertain whether the product has been tampered with by visually verifying that the liner is present and sealed to the bottle opening.
While the combination of bottle caps and liners of the types currently in use provides for an acceptable means of product identification and sealing, these combinations do have their limitations. First, it is more costly to manufacture caps in an array of colors. This is because it takes time to change an injection molding machine over from one color to another, and because keeping inventory of various colors of caps means that more investment is required for that inventory and for the equipment and personnel to manage that inventory.
Second, the opaque caps of the prior art prevent consumers from ascertaining at the point of purchase whether the second level of tamper evidence—i.e. the heat seal label—has been tampered with. As discussed above, the prior art caps incorporate a first level tamper-evident feature into the cap that prevents the consumer from verifying the condition of the seal until after the purchase is made when the consumer removes the cap. Generally, consumers do not remove the cap until they have arrived at home, sometimes days after they have made the purchase. In the event that the consumer finds a broken seal, it will be very inconvenient for the consumer to return the product to the store.
Therefore, there is a need for a cap and liner combination which will provide a cost effective method of identifying the contents of a bottle. There is also a need for a cap and liner combination which will allow a consumer to ascertain, at the point of purchase, whether someone has tampered with the tamper-evident seal.
The present inventions relate to a clear cap and liner combination for bottles which solves the problems of the prior art. The preferred cap of the present inventions is at least partially transparent or translucent to allow a customer to perceive the liner through the cap at the point of purchase. In one embodiment, the liner serves as a label, wherein the customer can perceive, through the cap, information such as printing. The printing can be indicative of the product, such as the name of the manufacturer, the name of the bottle contents, ingredients, and/or nutritional data. Because the liner can be easily customized to identify the product contained in a bottle, only one version of a cap need be manufactured for use with many different products. In a second embodiment, the liner serves as a tamper evident seal, wherein the customer can perceive, through the cap, whether the seal has been breached. As such, the consumer will know, at the point of purchase, whether or not the product has been tampered with. In a third embodiment, the liner serves as both a label and a seal, wherein the liner creates a liquid resistant seal between the cap and the opening of the bottle. In a forth embodiment, the liner serves as both a label and a tamper evident seal.
Although not limited as such, the preferred application for the present inventions is as a closure device for blow-molded bottles. There are two types of caps which are generally in use today with blow-molded bottles: push-on caps and screw-on caps. These kinds of caps are often injection molded with polyethylene (both high and low density) or polypropylene, a common material used in injection molding. [polishing mold surfaces is important and/or reducing the thickness of the top wall, but need 0.025″ thickness]
These and other features, aspects, objects, and advantages of the inventions described and claimed herein will be become better understood upon consideration of the following detailed description, appended claims and accompanying drawings where:
It should be understood that the drawings are not necessarily to scale and that the embodiments are sometimes illustrated by graphic symbols, phantom lines, diagrammatic representations and fragmentary views. In certain instances, details which are not necessary for an understanding of the inventions described and claimed herein or which render other details difficult to perceive may have been omitted. It should be understood, of course, that the inventions described herein are not necessarily limited to the particular embodiments illustrated herein.
Like reference numerals will be used to refer to like or similar parts from Figure to Figure in the following description of the drawings.
The bottle cap 2a shown in
Although the cap 2a depicted in FIG. I is entirely non-opaque, the claims cover caps 2a in which only a portion of the cap 2a is non-opaque; i.e. the cap 2a would have a window. Accordingly, at least a portion of the cap 2a of the present invention is non-opaque such that the liner 4 can be perceived through the cap 2a, preferably through the circular cover 20a of the cap 2a. The non-opaque cap 2a may be translucent or transparent. However, it is preferable that at least the entire circular cover 20a is transparent to prevent distortion of any printing which is present on the liner 4. Distortion can minimized by careful resin selection/processing and mold polishing. The mold in the area that forms the top of the cap is preferably polished to SPI A-1, so that any surface diffraction of light passing through top or lid of the cap is minimized, making the top of the cap as transparent as possible. However, for certain applications, distortion may be a desired characteristic. For such an application, the cap 4 may be translucent so that the label 4 is at least still perceivable.
The cap 2a is preferably colorless, but some applications may require a colored cap. Nevertheless, the colored caps are non-opaque and are simply characterized by a hue. Both colorless and colored, non-opaque caps are covered by the claims herein.
As shown in
If an induction sealed liner (or other tamper indicating interior seal) is used, it may be possible to do any of the following: 1) completely eliminate a ratchet ring in the context of a screw cap 2) completely eliminate the pull tab in the context of a push-on cap, or 3) otherwise use simple non-tamper-indicating closure, and rely entirely on the inner tamper indicating seal, particularly when its condition (or presence) is readily visible through a transparent or translucent cap in accordance with the present invention. Among other things, the elimination of a ratchet ring or pull tab will reduce the amount of plastic used to make the cap, and will allow the shipment of more closures in a box, when the closure are shipped.
It is also contemplated that other liners 4 can be used that do not form a seal at the lip 68 of the bottle neck 6a. Such a liner 4 may be used to provide an indication of the contents of the bottle 62a and not for sealing purposes. Such a non-sealing liner 4 could be comprised of a laminated paper or a simple foam disc.
The preferred liner 4 of the present invention provides an indication of the contents of the bottle through printing or coloring. An example of such a liner 4 is shown in
The diameter of the liner 4 is generally sized to correspond to the diameter of the inside surface 34a of the bottle cap 2a such that the liner 4 fits snugly inside of the bottle cap 2a. It is preferable that the liner 4 is held firmly against the underside of the circular cover 20a to optimize printing clarity as seen through the circular cover 20a. At a minimum, however, the bottle cap 2a must hold the liner 4 near the underside of the circular cover 20a such that the liner 4 does not fall out of the bottle cap during the bottling operations. This can be achieved through several means. First, the liner 4 can be held inside of the bottle cap 2a by friction. Alternatively, holding means could be formed one the inside surface 34a of the bottle cap 2a to engage with the periphery of the liner 4, such as an inwardly directed projection. As shown in
Referring back to
Further, the bottle neck 6a preferably includes two ratchet portions 72 having a plurality of ratchet teeth 74. The two ratchet portions 72 are located diametrically opposite each other on the exterior surface 64a below the threads 66. The container 14 also includes a circumferential “bumper roll” or transfer ring 76 located below the ratchet portions 72 to facilitate gripping the bottle during the filling operation and grabbing the bottle during the loading of the bottle into a shipping container.
The liner 4a in
Although described herein with particular reference to screw on caps, the present inventions can also be used with push on caps 2b, as shown in
The application has particularly beneficial application in the field of blow-molded containers, such as those typically used for milk and juice to which a foil liner is typically and preferably applied. However, closures made in accordance with the invention will also have beneficial application on other containers, such as fiberboard containers with fitments that include an internal tamper-indicating pull ring (or grip) and frangible membrane, such as those shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,464,096. Using a transparent overcap as part of such a fitment will allow a consumer to easily see whether the membrane is intact without having to remove the overcap. As used herein, the term “tamper-indicating seal” is intended to include both a foil liner, as discussed above, and a removeable membrane with a grip to help remove the membrane as discussed in the '096 patent referred to above.
Although the inventions described and claimed herein (collectively sometimes referred to herein as the “invention”—singular) have been described in considerable detail with reference to certain preferred embodiments, one skilled in the art will appreciate that the inventions described and claimed herein can be practiced by other than the preferred embodiments, which have been presented for purposes of illustration and not of limitation. Therefore, the spirit and scope of the appended claims should not be limited to the description of the preferred embodiments contained herein.