Velcro Industries B.v.

Velcro Bvba

Velcro IP Holdings LLC

Phillips Screw Company

Valero Industries B.v.

Velern Industries B.v.

Velera Industries

Leach, Peter E.

Christopher M Gallant

Mark A Clarner

William P Clune

Luis Parellada Armela

Howard A Kingsford

Scott M Filion

David P Kraus

Brian J Vanbenschoten

Michel Labrecque

Jefferson Davis

Wallace L Kurtz, Jr

James R Barker

George A Provost

Andrew Cecil Harvey

Stephen C Jens

Ernesto S Tachauer

Clinton Dowd

Andrew Collins

Keith G Buzzell

William L Huber

James L Tardiff

Heidi S Tremblay

James W Babineau

Melissa Spezzafero

Christopher C Libby

Joseph K Parshley

William H Shepard

Richard M Formato

Richard John Schmidt

Arthur Edward Garavaglia

Gary E Dilling

Victor Horst Kheil

Joseph Earl Pierce

Jerry G Hodsdon

Daniel Lee Janzen

Alexander J Neeb

Kevin Keith Line

Derrick Slowikowski

Nadezhda Efremova

Timothy Ray Martin

Peter E Leach

Juan Sánchez

Almin Idrizovic

Kristel L Hinton

John Demain

Carl Marabello, Jr

William D Grenier

Emilio Munoz Herrero

Vamshideep Devershetty

David Erick Fuller

Paul R Erickson

Peter J Iannazzi

Martin I Jacobs

Gregory K Kopanski

Samuel White Pollard

Gilbert G Fryklund

Stephen R Arata

Shawn C Banker

David Villeneuve

Josep M Soler Carbonell

Gregory A Carr

Gregory R Kopanski

Hariani Zaki Sepanik

Cynthia J Oberg

Klaas Jan Stol

Hodsdon G Jerry

Andrew P Collins

Josep Soler Carbonell

Hariani Bettencourt

Brian J Van Benschoten

Heidi Scheerer Tremblay

A method of forming a male touch fastener product with a resin surface and an array of spaced-apart male touch fastener elements carried on the surface. Each touch fastener element has a stem extending from the surface and a head disposed at a distal end of the stem and extending laterally from the stem to a distal edge overhanging the surface. The head, stem and surface form a contiguous mass of resin. The distal edge has multiple toes extending laterally outward and varying in shape and size about the edge, with adjacent toes having facing, free-form resin surfaces defining crevices therebetween. The fastener element is particularly flexible and engages with very fine fibers.

Making male touch fastener elements

A debris ejector for a drilling tool is disclosed. The ejector may be provided as part of a tool assembly where the ejector is coupled with bit. In an example, a tool includes a cup and a drill bit passing through an internal void of the cup. The cutting end of the bit extends out the open end of the cup at a fixed distance, while an attachment end of the bit extends out the back of the cup. The tool further includes an ejector within the cup. The ejector spins with the bit and independently of the cup. In one example, the ejector includes ramped or angled wings that eject material within the cup. In another example, the ejector includes tapered wings with straight and/or angled walls that push material out of the cup through one or more holes of the cup.

Debris ejection techniques for drilling tools

A male touch fastener product with a resin surface and an array of spaced-apart male touch fastener elements carried on the surface. Each touch fastener element has a stem extending from the surface and a head disposed at a distal end of the stem and extending laterally from the stem to a distal edge overhanging the surface. The head, stem and surface form a contiguous mass of resin, the head. The distal edge has multiple toes extending laterally outward and varying in shape and size about the edge, with adjacent toes having facing, free-form resin surfaces defining crevices therebetween. The fastener element is particularly flexible and engages with very fine fibers.

Male touch fastener elements

A debris ejector for a drilling tool is disclosed. In some cases, the ejector may be provided, for example, as part of a tool assembly (e.g., where ejector is coupled with bit, or both a bit and cup). In an example, a tool includes a cup and a drill bit passing through an internal void of the cup. The cutting end of the bit extends out the open end of the cup, while an attachment end of the bit extends out the back of the cup. The tool further includes an ejector within the cup. The ejector spins with the bit and independently of the cup. In one example, the ejector includes ramped or angled wings that eject material within the cup. In another example, the ejector includes tapered wings with straight and/or angled walls that push material out of the cup through one or more holes of the cup.

A touch fastener product having a base sheet with a resin side surface and a male touch fastener element having a head disposed at a distal end of a resin stem and overhanging the base sheet. The head has an overall shape, as projected in a plane parallel to the base sheet, with a perimeter that defines spaced apart extremities corresponding to head sections of different engagement characteristics and disposed at different distances from a centroid of the overall shape. In one example, the head projection has a polygonal perimeter consisting of straight edges of differing lengths connected at radiused corners. In another, the perimeter comprises an unbroken series of at least three arc segments of different curvatures, with centers of the arc segments disposed at different distances from the centroid.

Fastener element shape

A molding apparatus defining a processing direction includes multiple molding modules spaced apart in a lateral direction perpendicular to the processing direction and a common reaction surface. Each molding module includes a frame and a mold roll that defines molding cavities. Each mold roll defines a respective pressure zone in cooperation with the reaction surface and each mold roll is movable with respect to the reaction surface by controlled operation of the frame. Molten resin is introduced into the pressure zones and forced into the molding cavities to form arrays of fastener elements extending from base layers of resin formed on the surfaces of the mold rolls. The fastener elements are withdrawn from the cavities while stripping the base layers from the peripheral surfaces.

Modular molding assembly

A method of forming a continuous sheet of pleated, hook-form, fastener product includes training a substrate about a pressure roll having an outer surface defining circumferential grooves. As the substrate approaches a nip between the pressure roll and a mold roll calendered with the pressure roll, a portion of the substrate is disposed within a corresponding one of the grooves between the pressure roll and a stationary horn extending into the groove whereby a longitudinally-extending pleat is formed in the substrate. The pleated substrate is then passed through the nip where resin regions are laminated to a side of the substrate opposed to the pleat.

Longitudinally pleated products

Techniques are disclosed for connecting a printing plate to a print cylinder or surface. The techniques may be implemented, for instance, with respect to a printing plate, a print cylinder, a print sleeve, or some combination thereof. In an embodiment, a field of mechanical fasteners is provisioned on a printing plate, and a complementary field of mechanical fasteners is provisioned on a print sleeve or cylinder. The mechanical fasteners collectively operate to provide a mechanical bond or interface that inhibits lateral and rotational movement of the plate during printing operations, and can also be configured to manage backlash between engaging surfaces of the interface. In some cases, backlash management includes use of cushion effect integral with the mechanical bond itself and/or unidirectional and possibly angled fastener elements to provide a snugging effect. The mechanical bond may be implemented with hook-and-loop, hook-and-hook, hook-to-channel, male/female-type fittings, vacuum, suction, and/or magnetics.

Printing plate connection systems

An ostomy belt has an elastic support membrane with a fibrous surface and an aperture for accessing a stoma. The aperture is formed by the user in a preferred location, and the area around the aperture is stabilized against stretch by applying a patch of relatively inelastic hook material to the fibrous surface about the aperture. An elastic membrane of an adhesive bandage is similarly stabilized about an opening in the bandage, by a hook patch that may have a flap for securing an IV tube.

Configuring elastic supports

A touch fastener loop material has a non-woven web of fibers forming both a base and a field of high-tenacity hook-engageable loops extending outward from one broad side of the base. The fibers are distributed such that the field of loops has a particular fiber volume distribution as a function of elevation above the base.

Loop fastening material

Touch fastener products, as well as apparatus and methods for manufacturing such products, are described. The methods and apparatus feature certain mold cavity shapes that are designed to facilitate demolding of hammer hook touch fastener elements exhibiting desirable fastening properties. Such mold cavity shapes can be combined with particularly soft molding resins to produce useful fastening products.

Touch fastener structures

A touch fastener loop material has a non-woven web of fibers forming both a base and a field of high-tenacity hook-engageable loops extending outward from one broad side of the base. The fibers are arranged with a particularly low density while maintaining hook-engageability and usefulness as a fastening material.

A method of making a sheet-form loop-engageable fastener product includes placing a layer of staple fibers on a first side of a substrate, needling fibers of the layer through the substrate to form loops extending from a second side of the substrate, removing end regions from at least some of the loops to form stems, and forming loop-engageable heads at free ends of at least some of the stems.

Loop-engageable fasteners and related systems and methods

Growing community of inventors

Nottingham, NH, United States of America

Christopher M Gallant