Patent Application
20120267378
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to beverage cups and containers. The present invention relates more specifically to stackable, disposable beverage cups and containers having partitions to separate a beverage from ice in the cup or container. 2. Description of the Related Art
There are many beverage cups and containers in the prior art which are directed to keeping a beverage cool. Some of these designs provide a container having one or more partitions. Some containers are designed with one or more liquid-filled cavities which can be frozen prior to use in order to cool a beverage that is poured into the container. There are various designs for these cooling cavities. Some cavities are located in the side walls of the container, while others use inserts of various shapes and sizes which can be placed in hollow portions of the container.
Other beverage containers are designed with rigid partitions in order to separate two or more fluids within the same container but which are not designed to allow the container to be stacked. A stackable device in the prior art which is designed to keep crushed ice or ice cubes away from the beverage fails to keep water from melting ice cubes separate from the beverage in the container.
There is a need in the art to have a stackable, disposable beverage cup which prevents water from melting ice from diluting the beverage in the container, but which allows sufficient contact between the ice and the beverage to keep the liquid cooled.
Ideally, such a device would be economical to make and simple to use. It would be desirable for the container to be of standard size and materials such that the cup could be used in conventional dispensers without modification of design.
Therefore, the present invention provides a stackable, self-standing, liquid-tight, disposable drinking cup that is designed to keep ice separated from a beverage in the cup. This separation is accomplished via a polymer plastic film liner secured to certain inner surfaces of the cup to provide a flexible wall for dividing the interior of the cup into two separate areas. The liner forms a pocket with an expandable top edge which may be pulled away from the cup body in order to hold ice.
The pocket may be made of one film layer with the edges of the pocket attached to the cup body by an adhesive seal or similar means. Alternatively, the pocket may be made of two layers joined by a heat sealed seam. In this configuration, the film layer next to the cup body is attached to the cup wall at least along a portion of the top edge. The container body may be made from any of the materials typically used for disposable drinking cups such as treated paper, expanded polystyrene foam, or other plastics.
This design permits cooling of the beverage without the resultant dilution which inevitably occurs upon the melting of the ice. The plastic film liner is collapsible against the inside of the cup, thus allowing the cups to be neatly stacked one inside another. Conventional cup dispensers may be utilized to hold a stack of these nested cups without modification of design. The cups may be used with standard cup lids, straws, and drink dispensers. The cup may be manufactured from conventional materials and may be of standard shape, size, and weight with the addition of the plastic film liner.
A more complete understanding of the present invention may be had by reference to the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
The present invention is designed to facilitate the use of current dispensers, holders, lids, and straws. The expandable pocket wall fully collapses against the inside of the container and takes up very little space inside the cup. When stacking the cups, the collapsed pocket conforms to the shape of the cup and permits easy nesting of the containers. The stack of containers fits conveniently inside current cup stack holders and can be individually dispensed as easily as current conventional disposable cups. The standard plastic lids will fit on the top of this cup and a standard straw may be used.
To use the disposable container of the present invention, the user pulls one of the cups from the stack of cups in the dispenser. If the user wishes to use ice, but does not want the ice to mix with the beverage, the user grabs the ice pocket tab and pulls it toward the center of the container, thus expanding the pocket wall and forming a pocket for the ice. The user then fills the pocket with ice and fills the other portion of the cup with the desired beverage. The user puts the lid on the beverage and the straw into the opening in the lid over the liquid beverage. The user can drink the beverage without having the ice melt and dilute the drink.
The disposable container of the present invention is simple in design and materials and easy to manufacture. As mentioned above, the cup body may be made of the same materials currently used for disposable drinking cups such as treated paper, expanded polystyrene foam, or other plastics. The pocket liner may be made of any polymer plastic film of suitable flexibility and strength to easily and smoothly conform to the inside of the cup body in its collapsed position and to evenly support the weight of the ice in the container in its expanded position.
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Alternatively, the expandable pocket wall 22 may be attached to the cup body 12 along the margins of the expandable pocket wall, thus eliminating the need for the fixed pocket wall 26. In this embodiment, the ice 20 and water from melted ice are still kept separate from the liquid beverage 18 because the margins of the expandable pocket wall 22 are firmly adhered to the cup body 12, thus providing a liquid-tight pocket for the ice.
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Although the present invention has been described in terms of the foregoing preferred embodiments, this description has been provided by way of explanation only, and is not intended to be construed as a limitation of the invention. Those skilled in the art will recognize modifications of the present invention that might accommodate different ratios of ice to beverage. Those skilled in the art will further recognize additional methods for opening the expandable pocket wall besides the ice pocket tab as well as different methods of attachment of the expandable pocket wall to the cup body besides adhesive. Such modifications, as well as changes to size, structure, materials, and method of manufacture of the beverage container of the present invention, do not necessarily depart from the spirit and scope of the invention.
