Dispensing System for Severable Sheet Material

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to an improved dispensing system for a package of a continuous, severable sheet material comprising a number of individual members severable from each other.

2. Discussion of Related Art

Dispensers for rolled-up materials, such as paper articles and plastic bags, are known in the art. These dispensers suffer from certain drawbacks, also well recognized in the art. For example, the dispensers are normally employed to dispense a material which requires an expensive device to assist in the separation of the rolled-up material from the roll, or which requires the employment of the user's two hands to sever the rolled-up material from the roll. Thus, Finkelstein, U.S. Pat. No. 4,274,573, discloses a dispenser for a rolled-up material, wherein the dispenser wall or walls adjacent to the circumference of the roll of the material inside the dispenser are provided with a first aperture through which the material, unwindable from the outside of the cylindrical wall, can be withdrawn from the dispenser. The dispenser also contains a second aperture in the wall adjacent to an end face of the wound-up roll through which the material unwindable from the inside of the roll can be drawn from the dispenser.

Barnett, U.S. Pat. No. 3,718,251, discloses a container for rolled goods, such as plastic bags, wherein the bags are removed from the roll through an opening in the container. The bags are removed by unwinding them from the outside of the roll.

Ritchie, U.S. Pat. No. 2,864,495, discloses a paper product roll dispenser comprising a container containing in one end wall portion thereof a centrally located removable portion defining an access to the container. A roll of paper product material, such as facial tissue, hand towels or toilet tissue, comprising a continuous roll of a plurality of severable sheets of the material disposed within the container is positioned within the container in such a manner that the end portion of the roll is adjacent to the access portion of the container. The individual sheets of the paper product are dispensed from the container by pulling the most inner-most sheet of the paper product from the inside of the roll through the access portion of the container.

Doyle et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,171,047, similarly to Ritchie, also disclose a container for removing from one end thereof, containing an opening, a longitudinally folded pre-moistened web of material comprised of a number of severable members, such as premoistened towelettes.

Hansen, U.S. Pat. No. 3,523,653, also discloses a container enabling the removal of individual members from a continuous roll of severable members through an opening in the middle of the container in such a way that the individual members are removed from the end of the rolled-up roll of the members.

Ellison, British Patent Specification No. 1,325,923, discloses a device for dispensing thin, flexible plastic film articles detachably joined in a series as a continuous stoved length. The articles are, e.g., plastic bags, and they are dispensed by unwinding a roll of the articles from the outside of the roll, flattening a continuous length of the articles and passing them over a series of rollers to a downstream surface delivery means.

In most of the patents and publications discussed above, the functions of a holding container and a dispensing unit were combined within a single package. However, in some practical applications, it is desirable to separate the two functions from each other. For example, in food supermarkets, certain plastic bags, commonly referred to in the trade as "wet bags" or "food bags", are used to contain products which, because of refrigeration or freezing, produce condensate moisture on the exterior thereof. Such products are inserted into the wet bags prior to the deposition thereof into a grocery sack to prevent direct contact of the potentially wet surface of the product with other products in the grocery sack. Normally, a roll of such bags is stored in a location under the counter of the check-out station, or behind the check-out station, and the check-out clerk must repetitiously bend to reach for and remove each bag from the container holding it under the counter. Such a repetitious bending motion is tiring, cumbersome and inconvenient.

Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to separate the function of the storage of a continuous roll of severable individual members from the function of dispensing such severable members from each other at a remote location.

Additional objects of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description and the appended claims.

There is provided a dispensing system for a package of a continuous, severable sheet material comprised of a plurality of individual severable members. Each of the members is defined by tranverse pre-weakened regions. The dispensing system comprises a storage container means holding the package and a dispensing means which is located separately from and at a location remote from the storage container means. The dispensing means is capable of guiding the severable sheet material therethrough, and, when sufficient force is applied to any one of the severable members, the dispensing means provides a sufficient resistance to such a force to insure that the member upon which the force is exerted is separated from the consecutive member in the area of the pre-weakened region.

FIG. 1 is a schematic representation of the dispensing system of the present invention.

FIG. 2A is an illustration of one embodiment of the dispensing means of the present invention.

FIG. 2B is an illustration of an alternative embodiment of the dispensing means of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an illustration of a coreless package of thermoplastic film wet bags which can be used with the dispensing system of the present invention.

FIGS. 4 and 5a-5h illustrate alternative embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 6 illustrates yet another alternative embodiment of the invention, wherein it is used in conjuction with a rack system for supporting grocery sacks.

The package of a continuous severable sheet material used with the dispensing system of the invention is any package comprised of any individually severable members, with each of the members being defined by transverse pre-weakened regions and separated from each other by such regions, such as a roll of plastic gussetted or ungussetted bags, of any gauge or size, such as waste bags, trash bags, garbage bags and sandwich type bags. The system can also be used for storing and dispensing articles other than plastic bags, such as wax paper or toweling. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the dispensing system is used to store and dispense any article contained on a coreless self-supporting roll of a plurality of individual severable members, the roll being usually formed by winding a plurality of individual severable members onto a roll supported by a central support member, and removing the roll from the support member, thereby collapsing it along the axis of the previously-present support member. The thus-obtained roll need not have a circular cross-section, but can, and usually does, assume the shape of an oval or ellipse in cross-section. The individual, severable members are then unwound from the center of the collapsed roll.

In the most preferred embodiment, the system of the present invention is utilized for holding and dispensing gussetted food bags from such a coreless roll containing a number of individual severable food bag members, which unwind from the center of the coreless roll.

The storage container may have any shape suitable for holding a coreless self-supporting wound roll of severable sheet material. The container can be made of any suitable material, such as cardboard, corrugated paper, metal, heavy gauge plastic or film. The container contains at least one opening in at least one of the walls thereof to allow the continuous severable sheet material to be removed therefrom. The opening may be of any suitable shape, such as a circular hole, an oval, a triangle, a rectangle, an elongated rectangle or a square. The opening can be of any size which allows the continuous, severable sheet material stored within the container to be removed therethrough without an undue amount of resistance which might sever the bags.

The dispensing means can also be made of any suitable construction material sufficiently rigid to guide the continuous, severable sheet material therethrough and to provide a sufficient resistance to a force exerted onto the sheet material when it is desired to separate the consecutive articles from each other. The dispensing means must be constructed of a material having a sufficient rigidity to facilitate the separation and retain the article adjacent to that being separated within the dispensing means. Suitable construction materials for the dispensing means are metal, e.g., aluminum, steel or copper, wire rod having a diameter of about 1/16 to about 1/4 inches, plastic, wood or plywood. The dispensing means member may have any shape suitable for performing its function, such as a cone, a spiral, or a multiplicity of clustered slots extending radially from a common center of a sheet of any flexible material, e.g., polyurethane having a thickness of about 3/8 inches.

The sheet material is guided from the storage container to the dispensing means directly or through at least one conventional guiding means, such as an eyelet, guiding the material from the storage container to the dispensing means. When the sheet material is guided, it need not have a "lay-flat" configuration, i.e., a uniform, flat profile. In the preferred embodiment using a coreless, center unwind, self-supporting roll of individual, severable members, such as food bags, the sheet material develops a twist as it is dispensed from the roll and is guided from the storage container to the dispensing means.

The invention will now be described in connection with one exemplary embodiment thereof illustrated in FIGS. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5a-5h. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art, however, that the invention is not limited to these particular embodiments.

With reference to FIG. 1, a storage container 3 holding a package of gussetted food bags is located under the countertop of a supermarket checkout counter 1. The container 3 has an opening 4 located in the side thereof through which the wet bags, in the form of a continuous sheet of a material separated by perforations, are removed and passed to a remotely-located dispensing unit 8. The unit 8 is fabricated from a mild steel rod having a diameter of about 1/16 inches. The base member 9 of the unit 8 (FIG. 2A) has two or more openings 10 for attaching the dispensing unit to the countertop. A stem 12 is attached substantially perpendicularly to the base 9 and it ends with a spirally-wound wire 11 containing a bottom wider portion 13 and a top, relatively narrow portion 15. The base of the unit 9 is securely attached, for example by nails or screws, through the openings 10 to the top of the countertop.

In one embodiment of the dispensing means of FIG. 2a, the height of the entire dispensing device 8 is about 4 inches, the base 9 is circular in shape and has a diameter of about 41/2 inches, the bottom 13 of the spirally-wound element 11 has a diameter of about 1 inch and the top 15 thereof has the diameter of about 1/2 inch.

In practicing this particular embodiment of the invention, the food bags, in the form of a continuous sheet of the bags separated by perforations, are removed from the container 3 and conducted through a suitable opening in the countertop 1 (not shown in the drawings) to the remotely-located dispensing unit 8. The continuous sheet of the bags is then threaded into the bottom 13 of the spiral 11 so that the top of the first bag emerges through the relatively narrow opening 15 of the spiral 11. To remove individual bags, the first bag is pulled through the spiral 11 unitl the perforation separating it from the adjacent bag emerges from the top 15 of the spiral 11. The first bag is then pulled in an angular direction or perpendicularly to the axis of the spiral 11 to separate it at the line of perforation from the next bag. This sequence is then repeated for each individual food bag.

FIG. 2b illustrates one alternative embodiment of the dispensing means 108 which can be used with the present invention, the dispensing means comprising a cone shaped from a spirally-wound wire having a diameter of about 1/8 to about 1/4 inches. The dispensing means 108 comprises a base member 109, circular in shape, and a dispensing cone-shaped member 111, formed from the same wire as the dispensing means. The base member 109 contains two or more openings 110 for fasteners. The operation of the dispensing system with the dispensing means 108 is substantially similar to that with the dispensing means 8 of FIG. 2a, as will be obvious to those skilled in the art. When the dispensing means 108 is used, the continuous sheet of the severable members may be threaded into the unit 108 either through the bottom 109 or in-between any of the two consecutive spirally-wound wire members forming the cone. The sheet is then threaded through the cone, withdrawn from it through the top 115, and the operation of the system is conducted in the manner identical to that with the dispensing means 8 of FIG. 2a.

The base of the dispensing unit, such as the base 9 or 109, is usually circular in shape, 1 to 3 inches in diameter. The stem, or support member of the dispensing unit, such as the member 12, is usually about 2 to 6 inches in length. The total height of the dispensing unit is usually 21/2 to 51/2 inches.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of a package of food bags which can be used with the dispensing system of the invention. A coreless, center unwind roll 17 comprises a number of thermoplastic film bags 20, with each bag having a bottom seal 14 and adjacent thereto a line of perforations 16 through the bag layers which will constitute the bag mouth opening 18 upon severence of one bag from the adjacent bag at the line of perforations 16. Such a bag and a container therefor are described in detail in a copending Canadian Patent Application, Ser. No. 476,493, filed on Mar. 14, 1985.

FIGS. 4 and 5 illustrate another alternative embodiment of the dispensing means 108, designated in FIG. 4 with the numeral 208. The dispensing means 208 comprises a multitude, e.g., six or eight, of sections 205 (FIG. 5a) formed by longitudinal cuts 207 in a sheet of a suitable material, e.g., polyurethane having a thickness of about 3/8 inches. A central circular opening 203 is formed for guiding the continuous severable sheet material therethrough. The entire dispensing means is mounted into the supermarket check-out counter 1, and it may be indented with respect to the horizontal surface of the counter, even therewith, or elevated above the surface. In operation, the continuous sheet of severable material, e.g., of food bags, is threaded from the bottom of the counter into the unit 208 through the opening 203 and withdrawn from the top of the unit. If the dispensing unit is used to dispense food bags, the first bag is pulled through the opening 203 until the perforation separating it from the adjacent bag emerges from the top of the dispensing unit. The first bag is then pulled in an angular direction or perpendicularly to the surface of the counter so that the next adjacent bag becomes engaged by one of the cuts 207 which maintains it in position while the first bag is separated from it. This sequence is then repeated for each individual food bag. FIG. 5a is a top view of the dispensing means 208.

FIGS. 5b-5h illustrate seven alternative examples of the configurations which can be used instead of the multi-section dispensing means 208. In each of these configurations, each of the dispensing means 308, corresponding functionally to the means 208 of FIG. 4, has a comparatively broad region 303, 303a-303f and at least one relatively narrow region or cut 307, 307a-307f. The broad region, similarly to the opening 203 in FIGS. 4 and 5a, allows for the withdrawl of the food bags, or similar articles, through the surface of the counter and the narrow region, similarly to the longitudinal cuts 207, retains the next adjacent bag when the preceding bag is separated therefrom.

FIG. 6 illustrates an alternative embodiment of the invention wherein the dispensing system of the invention is used in conjunction with a rack system used at supermarkets to support plastic grocery sacks. The conventional rack system 601 comprises a bottom base member 606, two arms 604 extending perpendicularly from the base member, and two pairs of grocery sack supporting arms 607, 609 and 607a, 609a, extending perpendicularly from the two arms 604. A brace member 612 provides stability to the rack system. The rack system is placed on a table or a countertop 605. This conventional rack system is modified by incorporating into it the dispensing system of this invention, comprising a storage container 603 holding a package of centrally-dispensed gussetted food bags. The food bags are withdrawn from the container through an opening 602 and form a continuous, severable sheet material 620. The sheet material (comprised of individual bags, connected to each other) is threaded through eyelets 610 (a guiding means) to a dispensing means 608. The dispensing means 608 can be any one of the dispensing units described above in connection with the discussion of FIGS. 1, 2a, 2b, 4 or 5a-5h, e.g., dispensing units 8, 108 or 208, operated in the manner described above for the respective units. The incorporation of the dispensing system of this invention into the conventional grocery sack supporting rack system enhances the convenience of operation of the rack system becaue it gives check-out counter personnel instant access to the food bags at the same physical location at which the grocery sacks are supported by the rack system.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the specific embodiments discussed above can be successfully repeated with ingredients equivalent to those generically or specifically set forth above and under variable process conditions.

From the foregoing specifications, one skilled in the art can readily ascertain the essential features of this invention and without departing from the spirit and scope thereof can adapt it to various diverse applications.