Patent Grant
12037163
The current invention relates to an injection moulded packaging comprising a container and a lid, said container having a bottom portion, a sidewall portion extending from the bottom portion and ending in a rim portion having an upper edge, said lid having a central portion and a peripheral rim portion, said peripheral rim portion of the lid being arranged to engage with the rim portion of the container to seal the container, said rim portion of the container having a first annular locking element arranged on the outside surface of the container rim and a second annular locking element arranged on the inside surface of the container rim, said peripheral rim portion of the lid comprising a downward facing U shaped groove into which the rim portion of the container can be engaged, said downward facing U shaped groove having a first surface facing the central portion of the lid and a second surface facing away from the central portion of the lid, said first surface being arranged with a first annular locking element which engages with the first locking element of the container rim and said second surface being arranged with a second annular locking element which engages with the second locking element of the container rim when the lid is mounted on the container.
Containers of various shapes and sizes and with various functionalities are well known in the art. Containers can also be made via many different manufacturing methods, however, one popular method is to use injection moulding. When injection moulding a container, many different functionalities can be integrated into the container due to the precise shapes that can be made via an injection moulding operation. For example, many different types of rims and lids can be provided to provide many different types of sealing properties. However, care needs to be taken when designing an injection moulded container since the container needs to be taken out of the mould in an efficient manner after the moulding procedure is finished.
Depending on the design of the container to be injection moulded, the injection mould can be simple or more complex. In most cases, it is desired to have an injection mould which only comprises two mould halves and which are drawn apart from each other to release the container. However, in certain cases, additional cores need to be designed which need to be withdrawn in multiple steps to free the injection moulded part from the mould. This issue is well known to the person skilled in the art of injection moulding. Designing parts to be easy to take out of an injection mould can therefore be a complicated task.
At the same time, when designing injection moulded containers for certain applications it is desired to provide a good sealing ability between a lid and the container. Furthermore, it can be desired to ensure that the lid remains safely on the container in the case that a container is dropped. For example, a situation could be imagined where a container filled with paint is dropped by accident. In this case, it is desired that the lid remains firmly seated on the container without popping off and releasing the paint onto the floor or other surface.
Good sealing abilities are often provided by secure locking means in the form of annular rings/grooves on the inside or outside surface of the upper rim portion of the container which engage with corresponding rings or grooves on a rim portion of the lid. However, often times, these locking/sealing means can interfere with removing the container easily from the mould.
Some examples of containers and lids are provided in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,845,877, 5,511,680, DK1773774, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,572,399, 4,307,817 A and GB613278 A. However, the above mentioned prior art containers are in many cases difficult to remove from an injection mould, have poor sealing/locking properties and/or are not made in an injection moulding operation.
It is therefore a first aspect of the current invention to provide an injection moulded plastic packaging comprising a container and a lid, where the container is easy to remove from the injection mould while also providing very good sealing and/or locking properties.
This is provided at least in part by the features presented in the characterizing portion of claim 1. In this way, a packaging is provided which is easy to remove from the injection mould while also providing very good sealing and locking properties.
In one embodiment, the first and/or the second annular locking elements of the container and/or the lid could be annular ring shaped ridges protruding from the surface on which they are arranged and extending around the periphery of the rim of the container and/or the lid respectively. In one embodiment, they could also be grooves which engage with ridges, or ridges which engage with grooves. In one embodiment, the ring shaped ridges have a continuous ridge, while in other embodiments, the ring shaped ridges could comprise spaced apart portions of ring shaped ridges.
In one embodiment, the first and second portions of the upper rim of the container could be in contact in the second position of the second portion. In one embodiment, the lower most portion of the second portion could abut the inside surface of the first portion. In one embodiment, the second portion could abut the first portion. In one embodiment, there could be essentially no space between the first and second portions in the second position of the second portion. In one embodiment, the first and second portions could be arranged such that there is essentially no change in the total thickness of the folded rim portion when the rim portion is deformed during use. In this way, a rim portion is provided which does not change in dimensions and which will not allow a lid to detach easily from the container, and/or will not let contents of the packaging leak out during normal deformation of the packaging.
In one embodiment, the rim portion of the container could comprise a third annular locking element and the rim portion of the lid could comprise a third annular locking element which engages with the third annular locking element of the rim portion of the lid when the lid is mounted on the container.
In one embodiment, the third annular locking element on the rim of the container could be arranged on the inner surface of the container. In one embodiment, the third annular locking element on the rim of the container could be arranged above the second annular locking element. In one embodiment, the second annular locking element on the rim of the container could be arranged below the first annular locking element on the rim of the container. In one embodiment, the second locking element on the rim of the container could be arranged below the central portion of the lid. In one embodiment, the locking elements of the lid could be arranged below the locking elements of the container when the lid is mounted on the container.
In one embodiment, the central portion of the lid could comprises a raised portion which is higher than the highest portion of the rim portion of the lid. In one embodiment, the central portion of the lid could be 1 mm higher than the highest portion of the rim portion of the lid. In one such embodiment, the raised portion of the lid and the rim portion of the lid could be arranged such that when a vertical force is applied to the raised portion of the lid, then the central portion of the lid is displaced downwardly and the second locking element of the lid is pressed outwardly against the second locking element of the rim of the container and/or against the side wall portion of the container.
In one embodiment, the lid could further comprise a lid lever which has a first position where it is extending downwardly along the side of the container and a second position where the lid lever is bent outwardly about a bending line until an outer portion of the lid lever engages with an outer portion of the rim portion of the container. In this way, it is easier to remove the lid from the container.
In another aspect of the current invention, a method of manufacturing an injection moulded packaging as discussed above is presented. The method could comprise the steps of injection moulding the container with the second portion of the rim of the container in its first position, opening the mould, folding the second portion of the rim portion of the container down until it abuts the first portion of the rim of the container, and mounting the lid on the container such that the first and second portions of the upper rim portion of the container are engaged within the downward facing U shaped groove of the lid.
This specification also discloses a second invention which could form the basis of a divisional application in the future. This second invention is related to providing an additional sealing effect for a container during a shaking operation. In many situations, a container is filled with a first material, for example paint, and then at a later time a second material, for example a tinting ink, is added to the first material and then the container is shaken to evenly distribute the second material within the first material. This is well known from, for example paint stores where a “shaker” is provided to shake the container properly after adding a tinting ink.
The extra sealing ability is provided by providing a packaging comprising a container and a lid, said container having a bottom portion, a sidewall portion and an upper rim portion, said lid comprising a central portion and a peripheral rim portion, the rim portion having a flange element extending downwards from the central portion and arranged between the central portion and the rim portion and having an outwardly facing surface which is arranged to engage with the sidewall of the container when the lid is mounted on the container, wherein, the central portion of the lid is higher than the highest point of the rim portion of the lid when the lid is mounted on the container. In this way, when a force is applied by a flat element to the upper surface of the lid, the central portion will deflect downwardly before the flat element engages with the highest portion of the rim of the lid. In this way, the flange element will be pressed outwardly against the inside surface of the container as well as the rim of the lid will be pressed down on the rim of the container.
In one embodiment, the flange element is an upwardly open U shaped wall portion arranged between the central portion and the rim portion.
In one embodiment, the central portion is 1 mm higher than the highest point on the rim of the lid.
The current specification also discloses a third invention. In this third invention, a lid for a container is provided where the lid comprises a downwards facing groove which is arranged to engage with an upwardly extending flange of a container to seal the interface between the container and the lid, said downwards facing groove comprising an inner flange which is arranged to be in contact with an inner surface of the container when placed on the container and an outer flange which is arranged to be in contact with an outer surface of the container when placed on the container, the lower edge of the inner flange being arranged lower than the lower edge of the outer flange. In this way, the lid will be self centering when placed on a container as the inner flange will automatically seek to slide into the inner portion of the container. In one embodiment, the lower edge of the inner flange is arranged as a tapered surface which tapers downwardly and inwardly. A packaging comprising a container with an upwardly extending flange and a lid as described above is also provided.
The current specification also discloses a fourth invention related to a lid with a lid lever. According to the fourth invention, a lid is provided with an outer rim portion in the form of a skirt which covers an upper portion of a container when placed on the container. A portion of the skirt is arranged as a lid lever which is bendable about a bending line from a first position where the lid lever is arranged essentially parallel with the skirt portion of the container to a second position where the lid lever is bent outwardly and arranged essentially perpendicular to the skirt portion. According to the invention, the lid lever is arranged to be bendable about a bending line, said bending line being formed as an area of reduced bending stiffness, and where the bending stiffness of the bending line is arranged with variable bending stiffness along the length of the bending line, having at least two areas of low bending stiffness separated by an area of higher bending stiffness. In one embodiment, the at least two areas of reduced stiffness are provided by a through going slot. In one embodiment, the bending line is provided with at least three areas of low bending stiffness separated by at least two areas of higher bending stiffness. In one embodiment, the length, along the bending line of the areas of reduced bending stiffness is greater than the length of the areas of increased bending stiffness.
According to this specification, the bending stiffness at a point should be understood as the bending stiffness about an axis which is arranged on a horizontal plane and arranged tangent to the bending line at the point.
In one embodiment, the lid lever comprises vertically arranged flanges on the outer surface of the lid lever, said vertically arranged flanges having free upper surfaces which come into contact with the outer surface of the rim portion of the lid in the second position of the lid lever. In one embodiment, the lid lever comprises at least two outer vertically arranged flanges and at least one middle vertically arranged flange. In one further embodiment, the height of the free upper surface of the middle flange is lower than the height of the free upper surface of the outer flange. In one embodiment, the bending line is arranged such that the central portion of the bending line along its length can stretch more than the outer portions of the bending line.
It should be clear to the person skilled in the art that these additional inventions could be combined as desired with the features of the first invention as defined in the claims.
It should be emphasized that the term “comprises/comprising/comprised of” when used in this specification is taken to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps or components but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, components or groups thereof.
In the following, the invention will be described in greater detail with reference to embodiments shown by the enclosed figures. It should be emphasized that the embodiments shown are used for example purposes only and should not be used to limit the scope of the invention.
The container comprises a bottom portion 14, a side wall portion 16 and an upper rim portion 18 with an upper edge 20. In this embodiment, the sidewall portion of the container has a circular cylindrical shape as is known in the art. Likewise, the bottom portion has a circular shape with a circular periphery. The upper rim portion 18 also has a circular periphery in this embodiment. However, other forms of container could also be imagined.
The function of the connection between the lid and the container will be described in more detail with reference to the cross sectional views shown in
As can be seen in
The upper portion in this embodiment comprises three annular locking elements 40, 42, 44. The orientation of the annular locking elements will initially be described with reference to the second position of the second portion of the upper rim portion of the container as shown in
As will be clear to the person skilled in the art when comparing the upper rim portion 18 of the container as shown in
The lid 2 is shown in good detail in
As can be seen from the
Furthermore, as can be seen from
In this embodiment, the lid is furthermore formed with an upwards facing U shaped groove 74 arranged between the downwards facing U shaped groove 60 and the central portion 8 of the lid.
The packaging 100 of
In contrast to the previous lid lever, this lid lever 102 is wider than the previous lid lever. The previous lid lever had room for two figures, while the current lid lever has room for three fingers. The width of the current lid lever is approximately 45 degrees of the outer circumference of the lid. If the lid lever is too narrow, it has been shown that the lid lever does not have an optimal effect. It can be compared to prying a bicycle tire off a rim. If a single narrow lever is used, it is not possible to get the entire tire edge to release from the rim. A number of levers are typically required spaced around a certain portion of the circumference. In one embodiment, it could be said that the lid lever needs to have a width which occupies at least 40 degrees of the circumference of the lid. In one embodiment, the lid lever needs to occupy at least 45 degrees of the circumference of the lid.
Another difference between the current lid lever and the prior art lid levers is that the current lid lever has a series of slots 120 arranged between the body of the lid lever 122 and the rim portion 124 of the lid. These slots 120 have the function of the bending line/foil hinge 84 of the previous lid lever.
However, it has been found, that when making a foil hinge as in the previous embodiment, the foil hinge needs to be made thin enough that it is easy to bend. This also has the effect that it tends to break at the sides of the lid lever, thereby reducing its effectivity. Furthermore, when bending the foil hinge, the central portion of the foil hinge and/or the outer sides of the foil hinge need to be deformed quite a bit due to the radius of the outer portion of the lid. This has had the effect, that the entire rim portion has been deformed and in the central portion has been pressed inwardly, thereby locking the rim of the lid even stronger to the rim of the container.
In the lid lever 102 of the current embodiment, the bending line is provided as a discontinuous bending line with portions having a very low bending stiffness (the slots 120) and smaller tabs portions 125 having a greater bending stiffness. This means that there is no deformation in the slot areas and a greater local deformation at the tab portions. In another embodiment (not shown) instead of slots which go through the entire depth of the lid lever, the low bending stiffness portions could be provided as a very thin web between the body of the lid lever and the rim portion of the lid which bends very easily in contrast to the local tab portions which deform less easily. In these embodiments, the slots are made via a slider in the mould which slides in from the outside of the lid. In this way, the slider can be withdrawn from the lid easily after moulding the lid. This is in contrast to the prior art lid lever, where the bending line was formed as a groove on the inside of the lid lever. This resulted in an undercut in the moulding tool which made it difficult to remove the lid from the tool.
In another embodiment (not shown), the bending line could be formed as a groove on the outside of the lid, the groove being arranged between the body portion of the lid lever and the rim portion of the lid. In this embodiment, the groove could be made having different depths along its length, such that some portions of the groove are less deep and have a greater stiffness and other portions of the groove are deeper and have a very low stiffness. In this case, the greater stiffness portions will ensure a good connection between the lid lever and the rim portion of the container, while the thinner portions will allow for maximum bending without causing the rim portion to deform and lock onto the container rim.
Furthermore, in this embodiment, additional vertically arranged flanges 142 are provided in the middle portion of the lid lever. In this embodiment, the upper contact surface 144 of the middle flanges are arranged slightly lower than the upper contact surfaces 146 of the outer flanges 148. In this way, when the lid lever bends upwardly, the middle flanges will contact at the same time as the outer flanges, due to the radius of the rim portion of the lid. It should be noted that the embodiment shown in
It is to be noted that the figures and the above description have shown and described the example embodiments in a simple and schematic manner. Many of the specific mechanical details have not been shown since the person skilled in the art should be familiar with these details and they would just unnecessarily complicate this description. For example, the specific materials used and the specific injection moulding procedure have not been described in detail since it is maintained that the person skilled in the art would be able to find suitable materials and suitable processes to manufacture the container according to the current invention.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PA201870224 | Apr 2018 | DK | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/EP2019/059868 | 4/16/2019 | WO |
| Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| WO2019/201967 | 10/24/2019 | WO | A |
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|---|---|---|---|
| 3817420 | Heisler | Jun 1974 | A |
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| 6845877 | Diesterbeck | Jan 2005 | B2 |
| 7225945 | Crider et al. | Jun 2007 | B2 |
| 20080283527 | Allen | Nov 2008 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 1150194 | Jul 1983 | CA |
| 173774 | Oct 2001 | DK |
| 133362 | Feb 1985 | EP |
| 0133362 | Feb 1985 | EP |
| 0207764 | Jan 1987 | EP |
| 0234769 | Sep 1987 | EP |
| 1179483 | Feb 2002 | EP |
| 2523866 | Nov 2012 | EP |
| 613278 | Nov 1948 | GB |
| 2001301740 | Oct 2001 | JP |
| WO 8501030 | Mar 1985 | WO |
| WO 9967147 | Dec 1999 | WO |
| WO 2015052348 | Apr 2015 | WO |
| Entry |
|---|
| Search Report in DK Application No. PA201870224 dated Sep. 19, 2018 (4 pages). |
| International Search Report in International Application No. PCT/EP2019/059868, dated Jul. 23, 2019 (3 pages). |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20210155383 A1 | May 2021 | US |
