Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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SYSTEM FOR DISPENSING NON-INTERTWINED WET WIPES IN A FLEXIBLE
CONTAINER
Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention refers to the technical field of
containers for storing personal hygiene products.
Particularly, the invention refers to containers for storing,
containing, transporting and dispensing wet wipes.
Background of the invention
There is currently a wide plurality of container devices
for disposable hygienic products such as tissues, wet wipes,
face towels and similar products. The known containers and
dispenser devices may be manufactured in rigid or flexible
plastic material, cardboard, heavyweight paper or other
materials that provide the structural characteristics
required to the container. Some of these containers have
hinged lids with mechanical or adhesive sealing to keep the
moisture of the liquid in which the wipes are. However, most
of these containers have the disadvantage of not possessing
elements for dispensing the products during its use. There is
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a wide plurality of patent documents in the prior art related
to rigid and flexible containers with elements to dispense
tissue-type paper products or wet wipes.
For example, European patent application EP1090852
describes a flexible packing for intertwined wet wipes, which
has a rigid hinged lid covering a top opening in the package
which provides access to the wipes. The invention consists of
a sealing element comprising micro-hooks placed at the
periphery of the opening, and its complement (micro-loops)
placed at the top of the packing, such that when the lid is
closed, the micro-hooks attach to the micro-loops, sealing
the packing. The sealing element may also have adhesive.
However, the sealing system described herein, does not
provide elements for dispensing the wipes one at a time.
On the other hand, Japanese patent application
JP2012001270 describes a packing, which can be flexible or
rigid, for wet wipes, having a hinged lid. In addition, the
packing has a wipe fastening element consisting of a hinged
tab that is held by one of its ends through adherible means
and contacts the stack of wipes inside the packing by its
other end through fastening devices. The adherible end of the
tab can be fastened both from a hinged lid and from the
packing itself. This application has the disadvantage that
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the user must insert the finger with the tab into the packing
so as to lift the top wipe from the stack, so with the use,
the adherible means of the tab may detach or break due to the
excessive pressure by the user.
Similarly, U.S. patents US4574952, U56715633, U57934597,
US7992744 and US8186541, as well as international patent
application under publication number W01996017794, protect
different inventions aimed to containers for tissue-type
products, illustrated in a rigid container, but its use in a
flexible packing is also mentioned in its scope. Moreover,
these patents illustrate the tissue products in an
intertwined manner, but its scope refers to its application
to generally stacked products. All these inventions protect a
non-hinged lid that has adhesive material to hold the first
tissue of the stack. However, in all of them the lid is
completely detachable, so its sole purpose is to pull the
first tissue at the beginning of the opening of the
container. Even patent US7934597 considers the first tissue
as a sacrifice product when adding an adhesive deposit which
interacts with the adhesive material of the lid. Therefore,
these patent documents have the disadvantage that the lid is
detachable and the adhesive fastening element is not useful
to lift the subsequent tissues of the stack contained inside
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the container. Moreover, another disadvantage refers to the
fact that the use of adhesives as the fastening element for
lifting wipes does not provide the appropriate fastening
strength in the wet wipes.
Finally, international patent application under
publication number W02003024842 describes a container for
tissues that are folded, but not intertwined, wherein the
container has a hinged lid that covers all the top portion of
same. The lid has a velcro-type fastening element that holds
each tissue. However, the container has all of its top
surface opened, totally uncovering the product when the
hinged lid is in an opened position. Further, the cover has a
tab for sealing when contacting the right side wall of the
container. This application has the disadvantage that the
sealing of the container is not completely tight, so a wet
wipe product would lose its moisture contents inside same.
Thus, there is the need for a system for dispensing non-
intertwined wet wipes in a flexible container. Moreover,
there is the specific need that the flexible container allows
for dispensing one wet wipe at a time. Finally, there is also
the need to include the necessary means to tightly seal the
container so that the wet wipes do not lose the antiseptic
liquid moisture.
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Object of the invention
The object of the present invention is to provide a
flexible container with a system for dispensing the non-
5 intertwined wet wipes contained inside it one at a time.
Also, the object of the present invention is that the
system allows for dispensing only the top wet wipe of the
stack contained inside the container.
Moreover, another object of the invention is to provide
the appropriate sealing means to keep the container tightly
closed.
Brief description of the figures:
The following drawings are attached to provide a better
understanding of the invention:
Figure 1 is a left front top perspective view of the
flexible container of the system for dispensing non-
intertwined wet wipes of the present invention, with the lid
in the closed position.
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Figure 2 is a left front top perspective view of the
flexible container of the system for dispensing non-
intertwined wet wipes of the present invention, with the lid
in the opened position.
Figure 3 is a view of the inner portion of the lid of
the flexible container of the system for dispensing non-
intertwined wet wipes of the present invention.
Detailed description of the invention
The present invention consists of a flexible container
(10) with a system for dispensing a plurality of non-
intertwined wet wipes (30) contained inside said flexible
container.
Figure 1 shows the flexible container (10). Preferably,
the flexible container (10) is substantially parallelepiped-
shaped with a top face (11), a front face, a rear face, two
side faces and a bottom face. In the preferred embodiment,
the flexible container (10) is made from a thermoplastic
material which is attached by its two longitudinal ends (12).
The top face (11) of the flexible container (10) has a lid
(20) with an inner face and an outer face. In the preferred
embodiment, the lid (20) has adhesive means in the entire
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inner face surface for its coupling to the top face (11) of
the container and has an adhesive-free tab (21). In the
illustrated preferred embodiment, the lid (20) is made of
transparent material and a perforated portion (13) of the top
face surface (11) of the flexible container (10) may be
observed.
Figure 2 illustrates the flexible container (10) with
the lid (20) in an opened position, wherein the perforated
portion (13) adheres to the inner face of the lid (20) thus
uncovering an opening (15) in the body of the top face (11).
The opening (15) allows the access to the wet wipes (30)
product contained inside the flexible container (10). The
perforated portion (13) has one fastening element (25) in its
bottom surface. Figure 3 shows a view of the inner portion of
the lid wherein all the cited technical elements may be
clearly seen.
During normal operation, the user can lift the lid (20)
by pulling up the tab (21). The first time, the perforated
portion (13) will detach from the flexible container (10)
forming the opening (15) and will remain adhered to the lid
(20), so when the container is sealed again by the lid (20),
the perforated portion (13) will match the opening (15). The
fastening element (25) is permanently adhered to the inner
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surface of the perforated portion (13) as shown in Figure 3,
which illustrates the inner portion of the lid (20) detached
from the container. In use, the fastening element (25)
detachably adheres to the top wet wipe product (30) of the
stack contained inside the flexible container (10), so when
the container is opened by pulling the tab (21) upwards, the
top wet wipe (30) is pulled up along with the lid, as shown
in Figure 2, for its easy removal. Subsequently, the lid (20)
is positioned again in the closed position of figure 1,
allowing the outer peripheral area of the lid (20), which is
not in contact with the perforated portion(13), to tightly
seal the container (10) through its adhesives means, allowing
for the fastening element (25) to contact the wet wipe that
remained at the top of the stack, thus detachably attaching
it. When the user needs to remove another wet wipe, he will
again pull the tab (21) by partially lifting the lid to the
opened position of figure 2 and the fastening element (25)
will pull up the top wet wipe, leaving it ready for the user
to take it by detaching it from the fastening element (25).
Wet wipes (30) are generally made of a non-woven
material that can have different compositions, such as
cellulose, cotton, rayon, polyolefins, viscose, among others.
The non-woven material can be manufactured by different
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methods such as carding, hydroentanglement, extrusion, among
others. During the manufacture of the wet wipes, the non-
woven material is cut, folded, stacked and moistened with
cosmetic, sanitary, cleaning and cleansing lotions, among
others. As the wet wipes (30) are stacked one on top of the
other inside the container, a cohesive strength is created
between them, which can lead to pulling two or more wipes
when trying to remove one wipe from the container. On the
other hand, a common feature in most of the non-woven fabric
types is that there are semi-loose fibers on its surface,
which may serve as the loop elements of a mechanical bond
system known in the field as the hook and loop system or the
Velcro type system . Thus, in the preferred embodiment of the
present invention, the fastening element (25) is a mechanical
fastening element, such as the hook element of the hook and
loop system. In this way, the hooks of the fastening element
(25) attach to the loops of the top wet wipe (30) of the
stack and pull it upwards when opening the lid (20) of the
container (10). Finally, as the container (10) is made of
flexible plastic material, while the container is being
emptied, the top portion (11) of the same will also go down
when sealing the container, so that both, this top portion
(11) and the perforated portion (13) which contains the
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fastening element (25), will always contact the top wet wipes
(30) of the stack of wipes, so the fastening element (25)
will be again attached to the subsequent top wet wipe (30)
and so forth.
5 In order for this dispensing system to be effective, it
is necessary that the bond strength of the fastening element
(25) to the non-woven fabric of the top wet wipe (30) is
greater than the cohesion strength between the wipes.
Therefore, the fastening element (25) must have a bond
10 strength to the non-woven fabric of the wet wipes that is 20%
greater than the cohesion strength between the stacked wet
wipes. According to the measurement tests performed on
several commercial wet wipes products, it was determined that
the average cohesion strength between the wet wipes ranges
between 100 and 240 grams, therefore, the fastening element
(25) shall produce a fastening strength with the top wet wipe
(30) between 120 and 290 grams. To obtain the operationally
suitable bonding within this range, the shape, height,
density and space among the hooks of the fastening element
(25) may be modified.
In an alternative embodiment of the present invention,
it is possible to consider the use of a rigid plastic lid. In
this alternative embodiment, the flexible container has also
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the opening on the top face. A hinged rigid lid is placed on
top of said opening, preferably with a mechanical sealing
mechanism, which has at least one fastening element in its
bottom surface, with the same technical features as those
previously identified in the above described preferable
embodiment.
Based on the above disclosure, certain embodiments and
details have been described in order to illustrate the
present invention, and it will be obvious for those skilled
in the art that variations and modifications may be made
without departing from the scope of the present invention.
