Patent Application
20150122673
The disclosure relates to a dispenser having two or more distinct sealed compartments that can be used to respectively contain and dispense two different substances that may be required to be separated until just prior to use.
The Holy Communion is a Christian sacrament reenacted in accordance with Jesus' instruction that his followers remember him when he gave his disciples bread and wine. In most Christian churches, the Holy Communion involves, from a purely mechanical standpoint, eating a piece of bread followed by drinking a small amount of wine. This can require extensive preparation, especially in large congregations. For example, portions of bread, often in the form of wafers, must be placed on special serving plates or containers which are passed to the communicants and then collected. Also, the wine, or grape juice is dispensed from individual serving cups or from one or more centrally located common cups. For large groups or groups in non-conventional locations, such as battlefield chapels, or the like, preparation for Holy Communion can be very inconvenient.
Also, even when permanent conventional facilities are available, congregants are often concerned about contamination due to handling of the bread and wine. Further, the preparation and serving of the bread and wine to a large group of people can take a great deal of time, reducing the time allowed for other portions of the service.
To minimize the limitations noted above, it is known to individually package a single serving of wine, or a facsimile thereof such as grape juice, and a single wafer in a package having two compartments. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,746,312 discloses a dispenser having a small open-top cup adapted for containing wine. The cup is closed by a two-part lid within which the wafer is disposed. A top layer of the lid is first removed to access the wafer and a lower layer of the lid is later removed to allow drinking of the wine from the cup. This permits a user to partake in the Holy Communion in the proper sequential order, i.e. the bread followed by the wine. A tab on the upper layer is first grasped to peel back the upper layer and reveal the wafer, after which another tab is pulled upwardly to open the cup for access to the wine. However, the tab on the upper layer is disposed directly over the tab on the lower layer. Therefore, it can be difficult to pull the upper layer tab without also pulling the lower layer tab. This is especially difficult for people with arthritis or other physical conditions. The patent teaches that the tabs can be offset from each other around the periphery of the cup. However, this configuration is difficult and relatively expensive to manufacture. Further such a configuration still presents problems because, in view of the thin nature of the layers, it is difficult to determine which tab is on the upper layer tab and which tab is on the lower layer. Of course, if the user pulls the lower layer tab first, the wine is accessed before the wafer and not in the proper sequential order.
While methods and apparatus are described herein by way of example, those skilled in the art recognize that the methods and apparatus are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood that the drawings and description are not intended to be limited to the particular form disclosed. Rather, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the claims. Any headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used herein, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to) rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.
Referring to the drawings and particularly to
A peripheral portion of first layer 16 is adhered to flange portion 12 to seal the first material, such as grape juice or wine in the cavity portion of container 10. First layer 16 can be made of a paper-foil or paper-plastic material and can be heat-sealed, or otherwise removable attached to flange portion 12. A peripheral portion of second layer 14 is attached to first layer 16 to define a cavity between second layer 14 and first layer 16, as best shown in
Second layer 14 can be distended upwardly, while first layer 16 is distended downwardly to define a cavity that receives wafer 15 (see
As best illustrated in
Note that, as illustrated in
First layer 16 can be adhered to flange 12 more securely than second layer 14 is adhered to first layer 16 to insure that second layer 14 can be pulled off without unsealing the cavity of container 10. Also, various instructions or other printed material can be placed on the layers or between the layers. The container and layers can be adapted to hold various materials such as pharmaceuticals and chemicals that are used in association with one another.
Note that the steps described above do not need to be performed in the sequence described above. For example, wafer 15 can be disposed between layers 14 and 16, and layers 14 and 16 can be adhered to each other, to form a unitary package, before layer 16 is attached to container 10. The package can then be attached to container 10 as a single unit.
Having described and illustrated the principles of our invention with reference to the described embodiment, it will be recognized that the described embodiment can be modified in arrangement and detail without departing from such principles. It should be understood that the programs, processes, or methods described herein are not related or limited to any particular type of computing environment, unless indicated otherwise.
In view of the many possible embodiments to which the principles of our invention may be applied, we claim as our invention all such embodiments as may come within the scope and spirit of the following claims and equivalents thereto.
