Patent Application
20100193522
Not applicable.
Not applicable.
This invention relates to a system for dispensing a material from a container.
There are a variety of types of conventional closures for containers. One type of prior art closure includes a body or base for being attached to the top of a container. The body defines an opening to the container interior. The closure further includes a lid which is hingedly mounted on the body and which can be lifted up to expose the closure body opening.
Closures are typically used for facilitating the containment of, and permitting access to, a product stored in a container. With some types of products, it would be desirable to provide a closure with a lid structure that, when opened, would (a) permit a person's fingers to be inserted through the open closure into the container to remove some or all of the product, and/or (b) accommodate the insertion of a utensil through the open closure to permit the product to be removed from the container, and/or (c) accommodate the pouring of a product out of the container through the open closure. Such a closure could then be used on a container that would be suitable for a variety of products including discrete items (e.g., cookies, crackers, nuts, candy, etc.), and fluent products (e.g., granular or powder substances such as flour, sugars, etc., or liquids).
A typical conventional closure includes a peripheral wall or closure body that extends upwardly from the container around the container opening, and a lid associated with the closure body (typically hinged thereto) whereby the closure body and lid are adapted to “latch together” when the lid is in the closed position on the closure body. Typically, such a latching system includes a laterally outwardly extending latch bead on a portion of the closure body and a laterally inwardly extending latch bead on a portion of the closure lid so that when the lid is in the closed position on top of, and at least partly overlapping a portion of the closure body, the lid latch bead lies below the closure body latch bead to create an interference resistance to opening the lid.
Typically, the closed lid must be initially subjected to an upwardly directed force applied by the user so as to effect sufficient temporary, elastic distortion or deformation of the closure lid and/or closure body in the region of the lid latch bead and closure body latch bead to permit the lid latch bead to be forced upwardly past, and become free of, the closure body latch bead. Thereafter, only a much reduced lift force is needed to continue moving the lid further upwardly to a fully opened (or at least sufficiently opened) position.
The inventors of the present invention have discovered that with some container/closure packages, the packages may be subjected to unintended, inadvertent, accidental impacts or engagements with external structures or adjacent packages, and such impacts can overcome the latching resistance and dislodge the fully closed lid.
The inventors of the present invention have discovered that such lid-opening or lid-loosening impacts or engagements can occur during handling or shipping of the package by the manufacture of the product. The inadvertent impacts caused during shipping (especially when many identical packages are loaded together in a shipping carton or other container and subjected to shaking, bouncing, etc., during transportation) may cause one or more package lids to become opened, or partially opened, or loose.
The inventors of the present invention have additionally discovered that a system can be provided to minimize the likelihood of a lid becoming unlatched from its closed position when the package is subjected to various forces as a result of shipping, handling, etc.—but without requiring that the ultimate end user to apply an extraordinary large opening force to the lid every time the user wishes to open the lid after the lid has been initially opened.
The inventors of the present invention have discovered a latch system that has only an initially large opening resistance, and that does not employ conventional tear-away locking rings and/or produce sharp edges during the initial opening of the lid.
The inventors of the present invention have also discovered that such an improved lid latching system can be employed in a closure which can be molded as one piece, and does not require assembly of multiple parts.
Further, such an improved system can be designed to accommodate efficient, high-quality, high-speed, large volume manufacturing techniques with a reduced product reject rate to produce products having consistent operating characteristics unit-to-unit with high reliability.
According to the present invention, a closure system is provided for a container that has an interior where a product may be stored. The closure system includes:
In one preferred embodiment, the “peripheral wall” is actually a body of a separate closure wherein the closure body is adapted to be installed directly on the container and wherein the closure body cooperates with the lid.
Either the peripheral wall or the lid includes a deflectable latch pad having a latch aperture defined by a surrounding elastically deformable portion of the deflectable latch pad that can be elastically deformed laterally outwardly around the latch aperture to increase the size of the latch aperture.
The other of the peripheral wall and lid has a latch post for being pushed into the latch aperture only during the first closing of the lid while the deflectable latch pad is restrained against inward movement whereby an initial releasable connection is created between the latch post and the deflectable latch pad to establish at least part of an initial opening resistance of the lid.
After the lid is opened following the first closing of the lid, any subsequent closing of the lid fails to create a connection between the latch post and the deflectable latch pad owing to unrestrained inward deflection of the deflectable latch pad by the latch post as the lid is moved to the closed position.
In one contemplated embodiment, the invention is preferably incorporated in a separate closure having a lid hinged to the peripheral wall that is a separate closure body which can be installed on a container.
Numerous other advantages and features of the present invention will become readily apparent from the following detailed description of the invention, from the claims, and from the accompanying drawings.
In the accompanying drawings forming part of the specification, in which like numerals are employed to designate like parts throughout the same,
While this invention is susceptible of embodiment in many different forms, this specification and the accompanying drawings disclose only some specific forms as examples of the invention. The invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments so described, however. The scope of the invention is pointed out in the appended claims.
For ease of description, the closure system of this invention is described with reference to various orientations. It will be understood, however, that the closure system of this invention may be manufactured, stored, transported, used, and sold in orientations other than those described.
The closure system of this invention is suitable for use with a variety of conventional or special containers having various designs, the details of which, although not illustrated or described, would be apparent to those having skill in the art and an understanding of such containers. With respect to the embodiments of the invention described herein, the container, per se, forms no part of, and therefore is not intended to limit, the broadest aspects of the present invention. It will also be understood by those of ordinary skill that novel and non-obvious inventive aspects are embodied in the described exemplary dispensing system alone.
One presently preferred embodiment of a closure system of the present invention is in the form of a closure illustrated in
The container (not shown) typically has a conventional mouth which provides access to the container interior and product contained therein. The product may be, for example, nuts, candies, crackers, cookies, etc., which can be removed by hand from the container, or scooped out of a container, or ladled out of a container. The product may also be a more highly fluent material that can be poured, as well as scooped out, or ladled out, such as ground coffee, sugar, or other material, such as liquids, powders, slurries, etc. Such materials may be sold, for example, as a food product, a personal care product, an industrial product, or a household product. Such materials may be for internal or external use by humans or animals, or for use in activities involving medicine, manufacturing, commercial or household maintenance, construction, agriculture, etc.
The container (not illustrated) typically may include a neck or other suitable structure defining the container mouth having a cross-sectional configuration with which the closure 30 is adapted to engage. The body of the container may have another cross-sectional configuration that differs from the cross-sectional configuration of the container mouth. The container may, on the other hand, have a substantially uniform shape along its entire length or height without any neck portion of reduced size or different cross-section.
The container may or may not be a squeezable container having a flexible wall or walls which can be grasped by the user and compressed somewhat. However, the particular embodiment of the closure 30 illustrated in
As shown in
In the embodiment illustrated in
In other contemplated embodiments, the closure 30 need not be a structure that is completely separate from the container (not illustrated). Instead, the container could be made with a dispensing end structure that incorporates the closure 30 as a unitary part of the container. In such an alternative, the illustrated closure 30 could be modified so that it is formed as an extension of the container, per se, and such an extending portion defining the body or peripheral wall 32 could then be characterized as a structural feature that functions to (1) accommodate communication with the container interior, and (2) cooperate with the lid.
In either of the above-discussed alternatives (i.e., either a separate closure or a closure with a closure body (i.e., peripheral wall) molded as an extension of a container), the container may have an initially open bottom end opposite the end on which the closure 30 is located, and such an initially open bottom end could be used for accommodating the filling of the container (after inverting the container) with the product. After the inverted container is filled with the product through the open bottom end of the container, the open bottom end of the container could be closed by suitable means, such as by a separate bottom end closure which could be attached to the container bottom end (e.g., through a suitable threaded engagement, snap-fit engagement, adhesive engagement, thermal bonding engagement, etc.). Alternatively, such an open bottom portion of the container could be deformed closed (e.g., with an appropriate process applying heat and force if the container bottom end portion is made from a thermoplastic material or other material that would accommodate the use of such a process).
In the illustrated embodiment of the closure 30, the peripheral wall or body 32 includes a skirt 40 (
The closure body 32 may also be permanently attached to the container by means of induction bonding, ultrasonic bonding, gluing, or the like, depending upon the materials employed for the container and closure body 32.
The interior of the body 32 may also include special or conventional seal features to provide an enhanced leak-tight seal between the closure body 32 and the container. The illustrated snap-fit closure body 32 does not employ such an enhanced seal feature.
As can be seen in
As can be seen in
The lid 34 includes a cover portion 60 having an outwardly projecting, exterior, rigidifying flange 62 (
An additional lid latching or hold-down system may be employed. Specifically, in the illustrated embodiment of the closure 30, the front of the closure lid 34 includes a downwardly projecting front tab 72 (
The arrangement of the co-acting beads 74 and 78 and of the previously described co-acting beads 50 and 64 functions to hold the lid 34 in the closed position during normal handling of the closure and associated package. These beads may also function to hold the lid in the closed position during minor impacts on the closure lid and/or body during handling or shipping. However, the arrangement of the latch beads 50/64 and 74/78 accommodates deliberate opening of the lid 34 when a sufficient opening force is applied by the user. Further, when the lid 34 is in the closed position, the arrangement of the spaced-apart pair of beads 50 and 64 and of the spaced-apart pair of beads 74 and 78 accommodates slight variations in vertical dimensions owing to manufacturing tolerances.
In some applications, it may not be necessary or desirable to provide the pairs of beads 50/64 and/or 74/78 to hold the lid 34 in the closed position. That is, one of the sets of beads (e.g., beads 50 and 64) or the other set of beads (e.g., beads 74 and 78) could be omitted to leave only one functioning pair of beads to hold the lid 34 closed. Indeed, in some applications, it may be desirable to omit entirely the lid front tab 72, its bead 74, and the cooperating bead 78 on the closure body 32. In other cases, it may be desirable to provide the co-acting pair of beads 78 and 74, but to omit entirely the other pair of the beads 50 and 64.
In some applications, it may not even be necessary or desirable to provide any such pairs of co-acting beads to hold the lid 34 in the closed position. For example, if the film hinge 36 that connects the lid 34 to closure body 32 is replaced with a snap-action type hinge that normally biases the lid 34 to the closed position, then that type of hinge may provide sufficient closure retention of the lid 34 during normal handling and use by a consumer. Similarly, instead of latch beads, the closure could be provided with a sliding frictional engagement between overlapping portions of the closed lid 34 and the closure body 32 that would provide enough initial resistance to hold the lid in the closed position during normal handling by a user.
However, it is generally preferable for the closed lid 34 to be relatively easily lifted upwardly to the open position by the user when the user must open and close the lid many times as the user repeatedly uses the package over a period of days, weeks, months, or years. On the other hand, in order to prevent inadvertent and unintended opening of the lid 34 during handling and shipping of the package prior to reaching the end user, it would be desirable to provide an initial lid latching system that would require a relatively high, or large, initial lifting force to open the lid 34 only for the first time the lid is opened (but that would require only a much lower lifting force to open the lid the second time and subsequent times) wherein the initially closed closure could withstand relatively high impact forces during handling by the manufacturer and during shipping without the lid being opened or loosened by such forces.
To this end, and in order to minimize the likelihood of such unintentional opening of the lid 34 during shipping and handling prior to delivery to the end user, a “high lift force” latch system is provided, and the high lift force latch system needs to be opened only initially (and only once) by the ultimate end user of the package. The high lift force latch system provides a means to initially latch the closure lid 34 securely to the closure body 32 for shipping and handling until the package reaches the ultimate end user (e.g., consumer), at which time the closure 30 can be opened only when the user applies an initially high lift force, but the closure lid 34 can be subsequently closed and then re-opened without requiring the user to again provide such a high lift force. To this end, with reference to
The deflectable latch pad 80 is deflectable inwardly (i.e., downwardly as viewed in
The deflectable latch pad 80 has one or more latch apertures 88 (
Each latch aperture 88 is adapted to accommodate the insertion of a lid latch post 92 (
As can be seen in
Each latch post 92 is adapted to enter into, and be received in, a corresponding latch aperture 88 as shown in
However, after the manufacturer initially molds the closure 30 in the open condition (
As can be seen in
The rim 108 on the deflectable latch pad 80 also functions to shield the posts 92 during insertion. Also, if an optional liner (e.g., a heat-sealable seal membrane—not illustrated) is provided across a lower, interior portion of the closure or across the top of the container, then the rim 108 can protect such a liner from being pierced or otherwise damaged by the posts 88 when the closed closure 30 is installed on a container by the bottler or packager.
It will be appreciated that when a user subsequently desires to open the lid 34 for the first time, there will be a considerable resistance to opening that will require a significant force to be exerted outwardly (e.g., upwardly in
Typically, the force required by the user to open the lid 34 for the first time is relatively high owing primarily to the engagement between the lid latch posts 92 and the closure body latch pad 80. The required initial opening force is preferably high enough so that during handling of the closure by the manufacturer and during shipping of a package on which the closure is installed, impacts on the closure (such as might occur when the packages are packed in a container that is bounced around during shipping) do not cause the lid 34 to become opened or unlatched.
If auxiliary latch beads are used, such as the above-described pairs of beads 50/64 and 74/78, then the opening resistance that such beads provide is typically considerably less than the resistance provided by the engagement of the latch posts 92 with the deflectable latching pad 80. As explained hereinafter, once the lid 34 has been initially opened, the latch posts 92 cannot be reinserted into the latch pad 80 when the user re-closes the lid 34. Therefore, although the end user of the package must initially provide a relatively high force to initially open the lid 34 of the closure 30 for the very first time, the lid 34 can be subsequently opened for the second and subsequent times by the user with a considerably lower lift force. This is because, as illustrated in
It will be appreciated that the initial opening of the closure lid 34 for the first time by the end user requires a high lift force, but does not require the breaking or tearing of special retention structures which could leave undesirable waste pieces and/or create undesirable sharp edges.
It will also be appreciated that each latch post 92 need not necessarily have a latch bead or radial convexity 98 (
It will also be appreciated that the above-described pairs of latch beads 50/64 and 74/78 can be omitted altogether so long as, after the lid 34 is initially opened by disengaging the latch posts 92 from the deflectable latch pad 80, the subsequently closed lid 34 can be held in the closed position with a sufficient hold-down force by other means (e.g., the weight of the lid 34 alone, or by the use of a snap-action hinge having a biasing force to normally maintain the lid 34 in the closed position, or by some suitable frictional engagement between a part or parts of the lid and a cooperating part or parts of the closure body—it being understood that after the user first opens and then re-closes the lid 34, such lid hold-down forces should be sufficiently low to allow the end user to relatively easily open the lid 34 a second time and subsequent times).
It will also be appreciated that the locations of the latch pads 80 and of the latch posts 92 could be interchanged. That is, the deflectable latch pads 80 could be provided on the lid 34 (instead of the closure body 32), while the latching posts 88 could be provided on the closure body 32 (instead of the lid 34). Also, in another variation (not illustrated), a first latch post could be provided on the lid, and a cooperating latch pad with an aperture could be provided on the closure body 32, while a second latch post is provided on the closure body 32, and a second cooperating latch pad with an aperture is provided in the closure lid 34.
As previously discussed, the invention can also be practiced with more than two posts 92 and two associated latch apertures 88 or with only one post 92 and latch pad aperture 88.
It will be readily apparent from the foregoing detailed description of the invention and from the illustrations thereof that numerous variations and modifications may be effected without departing from the true spirit and scope of the novel concepts or principles of this invention.
