This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-91414, filed on Mar. 28, 2005, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to packages for packing articles with information readable/writable radio-frequency-identification (RFID) tags.
2. Description of the Related Art
Moves are recently afoot to control various articles using RFID tags. For relatively small or thin articles to be controlled with RFID tags, they are frequently controlled in a relatively large package of several pieces.
In this case, however, the articles are packed close to one another and as such, RFID tags also come close to one another. This makes it difficult to read and write tag information of articles with RFID tags because of the mutual interference among the RFID tags. To reduce the mutual interference of the RFID tags, a method of preventing the mutual interference is disclosed which uses shielding sheets while separating the RFID tags from one another by a distance at which no mutual interference occurs, that is, keeping the distance among the articles from one another (for example, refer to JP-A-2004-246816).
However, in this case, since a specified distance must be kept among the articles, the package of the articles becomes bulky, thus posing the problem of increasing the space for storing the package.
The invention has been made in consideration of the problems of an increase of the size of a package with an RFID tag, resulting in increasing the space for storing the package. Accordingly, an advantage of the present invention is to provide a package which can be decreased in volume when packing articles and in which information of the RFID tags stuck to the articles can easily be read and written.
To achieve the above advantage, one aspect of the present invention is to provide a package for articles with radio-frequency-identification (RFID) tags, wherein the side faces of the package have an elastic bending structure.
According to an aspect of the invention, a package can be decreased in volume when packing articles, wherein information of the RFID tags stuck to the articles can easily be read and written individually without mutual interference among the RFID tags.
An embodiment of the invention will be described hereinbelow with reference to the drawings.
The package 11 is open to the top, and has planer front and back faces. The front and back faces have a pair of side faces connected together. The lower ends of the front and back faces also connect to construct the bottom. The pair of side faces has an elastic bending structure, and is made of a foaming material or the like. The package 11 is shaped like a bag as a whole, and has a strength to resist for the documents 13 fully packed.
The document 13 to be packed includes one or more pieces of paper, envelopes that contain paper, and books, and has the RFID tag 14 on the upper front thereof, for example. The RFID tag 14 stores unique identification information (ID code) and other various information including the title and the keyword of the document or the like.
The package 11 itself has the RFID tag 12 on the front face. The RFID tag 12 can store the category or class of the document 13 packed in the package 11.
The package 11 shown in
As shown in the sectional view of
Accordingly, the documents 13 are separated by a distance at which no mutual interference of the RFID tags 14 on the documents 13 occurs, so that the RFID tags 14 of the documents 13 can be read without mutual interference.
As shown in the sectional view of
Since the package according to the embodiment is made of a foaming material, it has the advantage of providing a package strong enough to pack a massive document. However, when at least the side faces are made of a foaming material, the package is given elasticity. When not only the side faces but also the bottom are made of a foaming material, the package is more likely to be compressed by an external force. In the package according to the invention, at least one or both of the side faces has only to have elasticity, and may not necessarily be made of a foaming material.
The package according to the embodiment has the advantage of facilitating reading of RFID tags stuck to documents by keeping the distance among the RFID tags to reduce the mutual interference of the RFID tags in normal times, and minimizing the storage volume only by applying an external force when stored. The embodiment also has the function of floating the documents in the package, or separating the documents from one another, owing to the bending structure of the side faces, thus offering the advantage of facilitating reading the documents even if the documents themselves have no elasticity.
However, documents generally have elasticity to some extents. Accordingly, the bending structure of the side faces has not necessarily to have the function of floating the documents. This is because documents are generally released to separate the RFID tags when an external force is eliminated, thus facilitating reading the RFID tags.
While the embodiment has been described for the case in which documents are packed in a package, it is to be understood that the invention is applied not only to the package for documents but also packages for various other articles within the sprit and scope of the invention.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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JP2005-091414 | Mar 2005 | JP | national |