This invention relates to thermoplastic bags commonly used as shopping bags in grocery stores, the bags are manufactured from a tubular thermoplastic structure comprising handles formed integrally in the tubular structure that forms the main body of the bag. The plastic shopping bags are sometimes called T-Shirt bags.
Plastic shopping bags, carrier bags, or plastic grocery bags are a type of plastic bag used as shopping bags and made from various kinds of plastic. In use by consumers worldwide since the 1960s, these bags are sometimes called single use bags, referring to carrying items from a store to a home. However, reuse for storage or trash is common, and modern plastic shopping bags are increasingly being recycled. In recent decades, numerous countries have introduced legislation restricting the sale of plastic bags, in a bid to reduce littering and plastic pollution. Some reusable shopping bags are made of plastic film, fibers, or fabric.
American and European patent applications relating to the production of plastic shopping bags can be found dating back to the early 1950s, but these refer to composite constructions with handles fixed to the bag in a secondary manufacturing process. The modern lightweight shopping bag is the invention of Swedish engineer Steen Gustaf Thulin. In the early 1960s, Thulin developed a method of forming a simple one-piece bag by folding, welding and die-cutting a flat tube of plastic for the packaging company Celloplast of Norrkoping, Sweden. Thulin's design produced a simple, strong bag with a high load-carrying capacity, and was patented worldwide by Celloplast in 1965. As his son Raoul said later, Sten believed that durable plastic bags will be not single-use but long-term used and could replace paper bags which need chopping of trees. The US petrochemicals group Mobil overturned Celloplast's US patent in 1977. Another prior art patent is U.S. Pat. No. 5,562,580 Beasley, et al. titled “self opening polyethylene bag stack and process for producing same”. This referenced patent contains much of the prior art of the currently disclosed invention while not addressing identifying color attributes of the bags.
From the mid-1980s onwards, plastic bags became common for carrying daily groceries from the store to vehicles and homes throughout the developed world. As plastic bags increasingly replaced paper bags, and as other plastic materials and products replaced glass, metal, stone, timber and other materials, a packaging materials war erupted, with plastic shopping bags at the center of highly publicized disputes.
In 1992, Sonoco Products Company of Hartsville, S.C. patented the “self-opening polyethylene bag stack.” The main innovation of this redesign is that the removal of a bag from the rack opens the next bag in the stack via a minimal adhesive placed between the bags on a tab at the center-top. This team was headed by Wade D. Fletcher and Harry Wilfong. This design and later variations upon it are commonplace through modern grocers, as they are space-efficient and customer-friendly.
Prior art of plastic grocery bags currently in use in the marketplace comprise handles that are not significantly visually distinguishable from the main body of the plastic bag. The handles of the plastic bag can sometime be hard to locate or identify as they blend in with the main body of the plastic bag. In some cases, the main body of the plastic bag is semi-transparent and the handles are semi-transparent, thus, requiring the end user to spend more time than he or she reasonably should be looking and feeling for the plastic bag handles, and in cases where many plastic bags are located next to each other, grabbing two handles wherein one handle belongs to one bag and the other handle belongs to another bag causing the end user to start over looking for the correct handles to grab.
Many plastic grocery bags in the marketplace are typically semi-transparent with no color or semi-transparent with color added such as brown or green, these bags are typically not easy to see clearly through, but the products in the bag can be seen, and the bags allow light to shine through the plastic film. Solid color bags are also an alternative to the semi-transparent bags. Many of the plastic grocery bags are semi-transparent in one color such as light brown throughout the entire bag including the handles with additional ink marking of a different color than the bag color inked across the main body of the bag. The ink coloring is usually an advertisement or simply the words “thank you!” being inked onto the front side of the bag main body.
The disclosed invention improves the usability of the modern lightweight shopping bag used in the marketplace today, such as the plastic bags used as shopping bags in grocery stores. The modern lightweight shopping bag is a simple, strong bag with a high load-carrying capacity, and handles formed integrally in and from the main body of the bag. The design of the integral developed handles and tubular shape of the main body creates an efficient and economical shopping bag unlike other types of plastic bags that comprise externally attached handles. The modern lightweight shopping bags are efficiently and economically produced in large quantities in manufacturing of the bags. In one step of manufacturing the bag, the structure is flattened and each end is sealed. In a following step, at and near one end of the structure, portions of the structure are removed forming two opposing handles and a mouth opening in the structure, a portion of the sealed area remaining completing the handles.
The object of the disclosed invention is displaying identifiable characteristics on the bag that improve the ease of use of the bag. Many of the disclosed identifiable characteristics of the invention can be applied during manufacturing of the bag. The plastic bags are designed to be used in a retail merchandising sales environment, and mainly to be used as a group of plastic bags arranged to be dispensed from a dispenser. The group of bags in the dispenser assists the end user to place products in the bag by holding the bag upright and open, as well as causing the current bag being dispensed to automatically open the next bag in succession in the dispenser as the dispensed bag is being removed from the dispenser. To allow the full and effective use of the disclosed plastic bag in a retail merchandising sales environment, an arranged group of bags and a proper bag dispenser should be used to assist the end user in the proper and efficient placement of products into the bag. For additional efficiency of bagging products in a retail merchandising sales environment, there may be multiple open bags available to the end user, each bag residing in a separate dispenser rack, thus, comprising a group of stacked bags with one bag in the group being in an open position, allowing the end user to place all of the desired products into bags before picking them up or placing them in a cart to carry out of the store. In addition, a cluster of bags can be used in a dispenser rack holding multiple rolled bags that are not open at the mouth. Current retail sales environments are currently deploying the above-mentioned cluster of stacked bags method comprising a group of stacked bags comprising an open bag in each group of stacked bags for bagging products by the end user or by a sales cashier.
One of the main objects of the disclosed invention is the use of handles that are significantly visually distinguishable from the main body of the bag, therefore assisting the end user to easily locate the handles of a particular bag to grab one pair of bag handles at a time. In addition to identifiable paired handles on the bag, other characteristics are also shown such as a displayed numeral in conventional numbers, displayed Braille numbers, and a displayed Universal Product Code (UPC) bar code. In another version of the disclosed invention wherein multiples of plastic bags full of products are present and placed closely next to each other in a bunch after dispensing the bags from a dispenser, the disclosed invention proposes a system of bagging products wherein each pair of handles are identifiable and distinct from all or most other pairs of handles in the bunch of open bags, allowing the end user to easily grab individual or multiple sets of plastic bag handles at the same time while reducing the chance that any plastic bag is grabbed by only one handle. Generally, bunches of 10 or less bags will have handles that are identifiable and distinct from every other pairs of handles in the bunch, but as the quantity of bags in the bunch increases, separated paired handles of the same characteristic may be included in the bunch of bags without diminishing the advantages of the invention. Wherein the duplicate paired handles of different bags in the bunch of bags will generally be placed a short distance from another in the bunch of bags, making those identical different paired handles identifiable as a separate pair of handles from the other identical pair of handles. A further object of the invention, are plastic bag handles with a characteristic identifiable to a visually impaired person such as a blind or color-blind person, and yet still another version of the invention comprises marking on the bag such as a Universal Product Code (UPC) that can be scanned and identified by a scanner.
Although plastic bags currently in use in the marketplace serve a useful purpose and an affordable alternative to paper bags, plastic grocery bags have a few shortcomings in their efficient use. Three instances of current problematic instances the disclosed invention assists in resolving are described below.
In a first instance, one noticeable shortcoming is when the end user pulls a plastic bag off of a roll of plastic bags and attempts to open the mouth of the bag to insert product into the bag. The first thing that must be accomplished after removing the bag from the roll of bags is to locate the correct end of the bag where the mouth is located. The mouth end to open is always at the end of the bag where the handles are close to. The handles of the prior art bags are normally the same color as the main body of the bag, thus requiring close observation of the correct end where the handles are located. The handles main identifiable attribute of an unopened bag is two appendages hanging off of the bag, after the bag is opened; in this case, the apertures in the handles are visible. After removing a plastic bag from the roll, the handles of the bag may be hanging away from the main body of the bag or they may be folded over and laying close against the main body of the bag. If the handles are folded over against the main body of the bag, the identification of the handles and the mouth of the bag is a little more time consuming. Some plastic grocery bags have an arrow pointing to the correct end of the bag to open, but many of the bags do not have the arrow. After locating the handles and the mouth of the bag, then the act of trying to separate the plastic sides of the bag at the mouth of the bag in order to insert product into the bag must be accomplished. The separating of the plastic sides and opening the bag can be challenging when using dry fingers on a slippery plastic bag, adding to the frustration of using plastic grocery bags.
In a second instance, a noticeable shortcoming is when the prior art plastic grocery bag is filled with product and the bag is to be removed from a dispenser rack where the bag is held and positioned upright and the handles of the bag are at the top of the bag. The handles are not immediately recognizable since the handles are the same color as the main body of the bag and the handles may be laying along the side of the bag, or laying against other bags of the same color in the dispenser rack, in effect the handles must be closely looked for to identify and grab a hold of to remove the bag from the dispenser rack.
In a third instance, a noticeable shortcoming is after grocery product has been inserted into many prior art bags during purchase of products at a grocery store. The bags are many times bunched together at the end of the checkout counter near the end of the cashier conveyor belt, the bags must be then grabbed by the handles and placed into a shopping cart or simply carried out of the store to be transported to their final destination. The problem arises in trying to find the correct two handles of one bag of the bunch of bags when looking at multiple bags with two handles each, and wherein all of the bag handles and bag main bodies are the same color or similar in color. Although it is possible to pickup more than one bag at a time when light grocery products are in the bags, usually one bag at a time is picked up and either put into a grocery cart or placed in the hands of the customer or end user for transport out of the store. The problem arises in separating the handles of multiple bags to find the two handles that belong to one individual bag. If any random two handles in the large bunch of bags and handles are picked up, there is a chance that one handle will belong to one bag and the other handle will belong to another bag. Upon grabbing two mismatched handles or two different bags and the following lifting of the two bags instead of lifting of only one bag, the result is each of the two bags are lifted by only one handle. In the one handle lifting scenario, each bag will ultimately shift sideways and possibly spill product from the bag, or in a worst case scenario, the one handle on each bag will tear, causing the bag and the grocery products to fall to the floor. Plastic grocery bags are generally designed to be lifted by both handles to support the weight of the products in the plastic bag.
The problems of the first, second, and third instances are much easier to overcome using the disclosed invention of characteristic identified plastic bag handles, the three scenarios the disclosed invention provides to the above instances are described below.
In the first instance, after pulling a plastic grocery bag off of the plastic bag roll, it is easier to see the handles of the bag when each handle comprises a characteristic on all of, or a portion of the handle, wherein the characteristic visibly contrasts with the visual surface appearance of the main body, thereby making the handles significantly visibly distinguishable from the main body, or in another description of the invention, wherein each handle comprises a characteristic on all of, or a portion of the handle, wherein the characteristic visibly contrasts with the visual surface appearance of the main body, and wherein each handle characteristic includes at least one of i) a color, ii) a color scheme, iii) a tint of a color, iv) a colored design with at least one of: a pattern; a letter; a numeral; an insignia; or v) any combination of the preceding characteristics thereby making the handles significantly visibly distinguishable from the main body. This makes it simpler for a person to instantly identify the correct end of the plastic bag to open. The first handle is identified with the same or similar characteristic as the second handle, and the handles are identifiable as a pair belonging to the same bag. In this situation, the end user does not have to look vigorously for the handles since the handles are significantly visually distinguishable from the rest of the plastic bag, reducing the time required to find the mouth of the plastic bag.
In the second instance, when removing a plastic grocery bag from a holding rack after the bag has been filled with product, color identifying handles on the plastic bag become very easy to see and identify, therefore saving the end user time and frustration of locating the handles of the plastic bag.
In the third instance, wherein each pair of bag handles in a bunch of multiple bags are visually identifiable as a pair and the identifying characteristic is visually distinct from every other plastic bag pair of handles on the grocery counter, the task of finding two handles that belong to one plastic bag becomes relatively easy.
In the instance the end user is visually impaired such as color-blind or blind in another sense (total loss of sight, tunnel vision etc.), visual identifying and Braille numerals can also be used in the disclosed invention to identify the plastic bag handles, and if preferable, identifying the plastic bag main body. In addition, patterns may be suitable as a handle characteristic for a color-blind user, although, in some instances a pattern may be hard to describe when communicating with another person on the identity of a particular bag, wherein a visually identifying numeral is easy to describe.
The disclosed plastic bag is typically constructed from a thermoplastic polymer material such as polyethylene or high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Typically the plastic shopping bags are semi-transparent-colorless or semi-transparent-colored, allowing the end user to generally see at least the shape of the products inside the bag. Solid-colored bags that are not semi-transparent are usually not used in grocery stores, although, the disclosed invention may use a semi-transparent main body of the bag and semi-transparent or solid colored handles, or if desired, the complete bag can be solid-multicolored if desirable. The disclosed plastic bag is a structure of plastic film comprising a first end, a second end, and a continuous surrounding sidewall, wherein the structure forms into a tubular shape having a width, a depth, and a height when the volume of the structure is filled with air or product, the structure forming into a flattened shape when empty and collapsed. In a possible and common step of manufacturing of the prior art bag, the structure is flattened and each end is sealed, in a following step, at and near the first end of the structure, two handle cutouts and a mouth cutout from the structure are removed forming two opposing loop handles, and a mouth opening in the structure, each handle comprising an aperture. The cutouts cut both the front and the back of the structure as the structure lays flat in a stack of multiple compressed tubular structures. The first end comprising a mouth and two opposing handles, the handles being a first handle and a second handle, each handle being a loop formed integrally in and of the structure, two apertures in the structure forming the two loop handles. The mouth opening of the structure is positioned between the first handle and the second handle for the entry of one or more products, the mouth opening and the handles being the top end of the bag, the opposing end of the first end being the second end and bottom end of the bag. The second end of the bag being closed and sealed for holding one or more products, the portion of the bag connecting between the first end and the second end is the main body of the bag. The bag is typically semi-transparent, although a solid colored bag is also an alternative. In the disclosed invention, each handle comprises a characteristic on all of, or a portion of the handle, wherein the characteristic visibly contrasts with the visual surface appearance of the main body, thereby making the handles significantly visibly distinguishable from the main body, or in another description of the invention, wherein each handle comprises a characteristic on all of, or a portion of the handle, wherein the characteristic visibly contrasts with the visual surface appearance of the main body, and wherein each handle characteristic includes at least one of i) a color, ii) a color scheme, iii) a tint of a color, iv) a colored design with at least one of: a pattern; a letter; a numeral; an insignia; or v) any combination of the preceding characteristics thereby making the handles significantly visibly distinguishable from the main body.
The first handle is identified with the same or similar characteristic as the second handle, thereby making the handles identifiable as a pair of handles on the same bag with the same or similar visual identifying properties allowing the two handles of one bag to be identifiable as belonging to a single bag when the bag is located next to multiple bags. A system for bagging products such as grocery products into the plastic bag is also shown and described in the disclosure.
Additional Considerations:
The visible characteristic of each handle may be provided on or in the material, which forms the handle.
There may be at least two different handle characteristics in a group of bags. For example, a first subgroup of the bags may have handles which include a first (i) a color, ii) a color scheme, iii) a tint of a color, iv) a colored design with at least one of: a pattern; a letter; a numeral; an insignia; or v) any combination of the preceding characteristics), and a second subgroup of bags may have handles which include a second (i) a color, ii) a color scheme, iii) a tint of a color, iv) a colored design with at least one of: a pattern; a letter; a numeral; an insignia; or v) any combination of the preceding characteristics).
The handle characteristic may include one or more of a i) a color, ii) a color scheme, iii) a tint of a color, iv) a colored design with at least one of: a pattern; a letter; a numeral; an insignia; or v) any combination of the preceding characteristics which is substantially absent from the main body of the bag.
The term tint is intended to include hue, shade, brightness and similar color properties, which allow for variations of the same color.
The handles are intended to contrast with, and differ significantly in their visual appearance from, the main body of the bag. There does not necessarily have to be a well-defined border between the handle characteristic and the main body, although such a border or immediate change of characteristic may be provided. Rather, the intention is for the handles to be different enough for a person to immediately see where the handles of the bag are (particularly as they are reaching for the handles, or about to do so), without the need for close inspection or prolonged consideration.
For example, the handles of a bag may be red, whilst the main body is transparent, translucent, white or another color that is not red. In another example, the handles may be reflective or shiny whilst the main body is not. The main body may be a neutral or dark color, whilst the handles are a bright or light color (or vice versa). The handles may exhibit particular patterns such as stripes or decorative designs that the main body does not exhibit. Other examples of contrasting characteristics will be evident to the skilled person and are also contemplated for the present invention.
A better understanding of the present invention will be had upon reference to the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which like numerals refer to like parts throughout the views herein:
For the convenience of the reader, the following is a list of reference numbers used in the description:
The main body hanger 26 is shown on the front and rear sides of the bag 1 and being attached to the mouth rim 36, the main body hanger 26 is also shown on the front and rear sides of the bag 1 and being attached to the mouth rim 36. The main body hanger 26 allows the main body 5 of the bag 1 to hang in the dispenser rack 18 (see
One reason for both the handle numerals 2(d), main body numerals 16, and the Braille numbers 12 to be located on the plastic bag handles 3+4 would be that it is probable that when a visually impaired person is using the plastic bag 1, he or she may possibly be accompanied by a seeing guide person to assist the visually impaired person. The guide person can identify the Braille number 12 on the plastic bag 1 handles 3+4 by viewing the handle numeral 2(d) on the plastic bag handles 3+4 allowing easy communication between the guide person and the visually impaired person in discussing a particular plastic bag 1 number 2(d) and the plastic bag 1 contents. Also shown is the combination of the (handle numeral 2(d) and the color 2(a)) 2(e) of the handle 3.
In the instance there is a group of bags 38+40 and subgroups of bags 50+52 in a dispenser rack 18, each handle 3+4 characteristic 2 in each subgroup of bags 50+52 can be assigned a matching numeral 2(d) distinctive to the corresponding characteristic 2 and the numeral 2(d) is displayed in at least one location on each corresponding handle 3+4 of each pair of handles 3+4 of the subgroup of bags 50, and the numeral 2(d) can also be displayed in tactile Braille 12 in at least one of, i) each corresponding handle 3+4 of each pair of handles 3+4 of the subgroup of bags 50, ii) the main body 5 of the bag 1, the succession of numerals 2(d) in each subgroup of bags 50 succeeding in numerical order.
The main body 5 of the plastic bag 1 is shown wrapped around the dispenser rack 18. Handles 3+4 are shown with the characteristic 2. Removing the plastic bag 1 from the dispenser rack 18 is accomplished by pulling on the plastic bag 1 to turn the dispenser rack 18. Various rolls of group of rolled bags 40 are used in the marketplace on the dispenser rack 18. One type of group of rolled bags 40 requires each plastic bag 1 to be torn from the next successive plastic bag 1, in this group the plastic bags 1 are sealed or joined together on a perforation between each plastic bag 1. Another type of group of rolled bags 40 mounted on a dispenser rack 18 allows each plastic bag 1 to simply fall off of the group of rolled bags 40 when the dispenser rack 18 is turned far enough to release the bag 1 from the group of rolled bags 40 and the dispenser rack 18. The plastic bags 1 are shown with the main body 5 of the bags in semi-transparent-colorless 10. Shown on the end of the handles 3+4 are the handle folds and overlaps 7 that help strengthen the handles by doubling the plastic film of the handles 3+4.
A preferred system of dispensing the bags 1 from the dispenser 18 also provided herein to be applied and used in practice. The system wherein a group of stacked bags 38 comprising the characteristic 2 of the handles 3+4 of the bag 1 which is first in line for removal in succession from the dispenser differs from and is significantly visually distinguishable from the characteristic 2 of the handles 3+4 of the bag 1 next in line for removal in succession from the dispenser rack 18. The system of a group of stacked bags 38 can also comprise successive subgroups of stacked bags 50 within the group of stacked bags 38, wherein each subgroup of stacked bags 50 can be removed from the dispenser rack 18 in succession and each bag 1 within each subgroup of stacked bags 50 can be removed from the dispenser rack 18 in succession, and wherein the characteristic of each pair of the handles 3+4 of each bag within each subgroup of stacked bags 50 differs from and is significantly visually distinguishable from the characteristic of every other pair of the handles 3+4 of the bags in the same subgroup of stacked bags 50. In addition, and optionally, the handle 3+4 characteristic 2 succession order and each handle 3+4 characteristic 2 in each subgroup of stacked bags 50 is matching and consistent with the other subgroups of bags 50 within the group of stacked bags 38. The described system of a group of stacked bags 38 in this herein paragraph can also be applied to a system comprising the group of rolled bags 40.
The characteristic of the handles may optionally extend from the top of the handles 3+4 down to at least the mouth of the bag 8, the characteristic of each handle 3+4 encircles the handle aperture 6, and the characteristic is visually evident from all sides of the bag 1 when the handles 3+4 are in sight. In addition, the handle 3+4 characteristic 2 also can also extend down into the main body 5 and past the mouth rim 36, therefore, significantly visually identifying the mouth rim 36 of the bag 1. The handles 3+4 characteristic 2 extension down into the main body 5 of the bag 1 can be about 2.5 cm or about one inch.
The cluster of stacked bags 42 is common to see in grocery markets at self serve stands where the customer scans and places the grocery products in opened bags 1 of the cluster of stacked bags 42. In the disclosed invention, having the handles 3+4 of each opened bag 1 of the cluster of stacked bags 42 of the different handle 3+4 characteristic 2 than the other bags 1 in the cluster of stacked bags 42 will allow the customer to pick the handles 3+4 with the characteristic 2 of the bag 1 he or she wants. The different characteristics 2 of matching pairs of handles 3+4 of different bags 1 of the cluster of stacked bags 42 will assist the customer in grabbing a single pair of handles 3+4 at a time to lift one or more bags 1 at a time, the matching pair of handles 3+4 on a particular bag assists the customer in preventing the grabbing of two handles 3+3 that each belong to different bags 1+1.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/103,819 titled “Color Identifyed grocery bag” filed Aug. 26, 2020 and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/103,911 titled “Grocery bag and system with color identifiable handles” filed Aug. 31, 2020 and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/204,046 titled “Grocery bag with identifiable attributes” filed Sep. 8, 2020 and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/204,157 titled “Plastic bag with visually identifiable characteristics” filed Sep. 15, 2020, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20220063870 A1 | Mar 2022 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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63204157 | Sep 2020 | US | |
63204046 | Sep 2020 | US | |
63103911 | Aug 2020 | US | |
63103819 | Aug 2020 | US |