US3021001A - Package for an individual portion - Google Patents

Description

Feb.

T F- DONOFRIO PACKAGE FOR AN INDIVIDUAL PORTION Filed Sept. 1, 1960 INVENTOR. THOMAS F. DONOFRIO A T708 Ne v5 United States Patent 3,021,001 PACKAGE FOR AN INDIVIDUAL PORTION Thomas F. Donofrio, Toledo, Ohio, assignor, by mesne assignments, to Silver Creek Precision Corporation, New York, N.Y., a corporation of New York Filed Sept. 1, 1960, Ser. No. 53,558 2 Claims. (Cl. 206-56) This invention relates to small packages, and more particularly to packages for individual portions or small quantities of various materials, and will be illustrated in the specification as being a package for anindividual portion of a foodstuff or similar material such as liquid or paste.

A number of suggestions and disclosures have been made where packages of small size have been molded or otherwise formed from sheet material and automatb cally filled at high speed with small quantities of a substance, such as food, and then sealed (usually by the application of heat to fuse the package and the cover material together), the whole subject matter being concerned with high speed production, high speed filling, automatic sealing, etc. Little thought has been given to the desirability of packages of this general type being made available for small quantity users, particularly those users who do not wish to invest in high speed automatic machinery and yet wish to be able to obtain the advantages of packages of this type.

It is, therefore, the principal object of this invention to provide a small, formed, cup-like package originally manufactured in package units, say, of four, six, eight or ten in number, with the packages arranged, for exi into a unit generally indicated by the reference number ample, in a single or double row and removably attached to each other at their adjacent sides, similar cover units also being provided, and the package being adapted for manual closing without the necessity of heat or other sealing equipment, the package being easily openable and yet sufficiently tightly sealed to permit safe handling.

It is yet another object of the instant invention to provide an individual portion package for foodstuffs, or the like, each of the packages comprising a cup-shaped body having a generally flat bottom and an area at its bottom less than the area at its top, with upwardly diverging walls, outwardly extending shoulders and a top flange, the return or marginal walls of the shoulders being inwardly inclined so as to provide an undercut recess and the package cover having a central depression with complementary vertical portions to mate with the undercut recess of the package and to permit the cover to be snapped into place, retained by the mating undercut portions of the cover and package, and yet readily removed by slight deformation of the cover.

These and other more specific objects and advantages of a package embodying the invention will be better understood from the following specification and from the drawings, in which- FIG. 1 is a view in perspective of a package unit comprising a single row of six adjacent individual packages and showing two of the packages filled with a liquid material;

FIG. 2 is a view in perspective of a cover unit designed for covering the packages in the package unit illustrated in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a front view in elevation of the package unit of FIG. 1 covered by the cover unit of FIG. 2, with a part of one of the packages broken away to illustrate the cooperation between the package and thecover whereby the cover is removably retained in place on the pack age without the necessity for the use of an adhesive or any adhesion between the materials of which the package and cover are made, and

FIG. 4 is a view in bottom perspective of a single 3,021,001 Patented Feb, 13, 1962 closed package showing its cover in place and the relationships of various parts and portions of both the package and the cover.

In FIG. 1 there is illustrated a plurality of individual packages 10 each of which has a molded cup-shaped body 11. In this embodiment of the invention, 'the'bodie's 11 are illustrated as being approximately square in horizontal plan and as having substantially flat bottoms; 12 (FIG. 4), with central convex portions for strengthening purposes. Each of the packages 10 is shown as having four upwardly extending, divergent side walls 13, the side walls 13 and bottom 12, of course, being continuous, for

example, formed from a single sheet of a thin material such as sheet plastic, waxed paper, or other material.

At the upper end of each side wall 13 there is formed an outwardly extending shoulder 14 and the shoulders 14 on all four of the side walls 13 cooperate to form an outwardly extending, generally horizontal shelf which extends around the body. Each of the shoulders 14 has an upwardly and inwardly extending shelf margin 15. The shelf margins 15 are inwardly directed at anangle of,

. say, three to five degrees to the vertical and the joining angle between the shoulders 14 and margins 15 is slightly rounded to avoid the creation of sharp stress concentration points. At the upper edges of the shelf margins 15the material from which the package 10 is formed is turned over horizontally forming outwardly directed lips 16 which cooperate to form a continuous planar flange 17 extend ing around the perimeter of the upper edges of the shelf margins 15. The flange 17 also forms a main lip on the package body 10.

FIGURE 1 shows a group of six packages 10 assembled 18, which unit is one row wide with adjacent packages connected to each other along the edges of their flanges 17, thereby forming a unit which can be fabricated, handled, filled, capped, shipped, etc., as one piece. While the package unit 18 is shown as having six packages in a single row, it will be appreciated, of course, that the number of packages in a row is limited only by the facility required to handle each unit during its fabrication,

filling, closing and shipping and, as will be discussed more fully below, packages embodying the invention may also be fabricated in units consisting of two adjacent rows of individual packages.

In FIGURE 2 a group of package covers 19 is shown. Each of the package covers 19 has a central recess 20 having a generally flat horizontal bottom 21 and generally vertical side Walls 22 around the margins of the bottom 21. The side walls 22 terminate at their upper edges in a continuous planar flange 23 which extends around the perimeter of the recess 20.

The outside horizontal dimensions of the side walls 22 of the recess 20 are such and the side walls 22 are so flared downwardly and outwardly that the cover 19 is snugly insertable in the angular space bordered by the shelf margins 15 of the package 10, the flare on the walls 22 of the cover 19 also being in the order of three to cover 19 may be grasped in order that it can be removed from a package 10. While two tabs 24 are illustrated in the drawings, it will be appreciated, of course, that each of the covers 19 could be formed with only one tab 24 at one side and that the opposite side of the flange 23 could be of the same width as the corresponding side of the cover flange 17. Such an arrangement could pro vide for a package and cover unit two packages wide with the removal tabs 24 of each row of covers 19 extending in opposite directions.

FIGURE 2 shows a unit 25 of individual covers 19 designed to close the unit 18 of packages 11} shown in FIG. 1. The assembly of covers 19 on packages 10, while in their respective units, is shown in FIG. 3, and an individual sealed package is illustrated in FIG. 4. Both the package unit 18 and the cover unit 25 are designed so that individual packages with their covers 19 can readily be removed from the unit after assembly is shown in FIG. 3. To this end, the joining flanges 17 of adjacent packages 10 are weakened, for example, by perforations along interpackage lines 26 and the flanges 23 of adjacent covers 19 are similarly weakened as by perforations along intercover lines 27. After assembly of a cover unit 25 on a packaging unit 18 with the covers 19 all snapped in place on their respective packages 10 the unit of filled packages may be handled in that manner. An ultimate user, for example, a waitress in a restaurant or a stewardess on an airplane, may separate the packages from each other by simultaneously tearing along the parting lines 26 and 27 for the removal of each package from a complete unit.

I claim:

1. A package comprising a molded cup-shape body having a generally flat bottom and upwardly extending, divergent side walls, outwardly extending shoulders at the upper ends of said walls forming an outwardly extending generally horizontal shelf around said body, upwardly and inwardly extending shelf margins on the outer side of said shelf, turned out lips at the upper ends of said margins, said lips forming a continuous planar flange extending horizontally around the perimeter of the upper edges of said margins and said body; a removable cover having a central recess with a generally flat bottom and generally vertical side walls and a continuous, planar flange extending horizontally around the perimeter of the recess at the upper edge of the recess, the outside horizontal dimensions of said recess side walls being snugly insertable in the space between the shelf margins of said package body and the generally vertical walls of said recess being downwardly flared complementarily to the upward and inward extent of the shelf margins of said package body, the flange on said cover extending horizontally beyond the flange on said package body on at least one side when said cover is inserted in said package.

2. A multiple package unit consisting of a plurality of package 'bodiw according to claim 1 integrally molded from a single piece of resinous sheet material with the packages extending in a row one package wide and a plurality long, the planar flanges of adjacent packages being continuous and weakened along interpackage lines extending across the row and a multiple cover unit consisting of a plurality of covers according to claim 1 integrally molded from a single piece of resinous sheet material with the individual covers extending in a row one cover wide and a similar plurality long, the planar flanges of adjacent covers being weakened along intercover lines extending across the row and the flanges thereof extending horizontally beyond the flanges of said package bodies in a direction transverse to the extent of the row.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,168,731 McKee Jan. 18, 1916 2,568,697 Amberg Sept. 25, 1951 2,582,655 Schenk Jan. 15, 1952 2,724,539 Schenk Nov. 22, 1955 2,947,463 Conklin Aug. 2, 1960 FOREIGN PATENTS 280,201 Switzerland Apr. 16, 1952

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