Sonoco Products Company

Hilex Poly Co. LLC

Sonoco Development Incorporated

Harry B Wilfong, Jr

Wade D Fletcher

Edwin W Haenni

Carll D Vrooman

Jeffrey S Vance

M Wayne Beasley

Manson Drew Case

Marion H Weatherford

William H Baxley, Jr

Floyd B Williams

Richard A Brown

William C Hoffmeyer

Jeff Zhang

The invention is directed to a method and apparatus for maintaining the inflation level of a bubble formed by nips in a moving roll of tubular film, to form a gusset in a final product produced from the film.

Automated gusset inflation system and method

A dispenser for bags is disclosed. The dispenser is capable of storing a roll of bags and dispensing individual bags therefrom. In addition, a dispensing system for use in dispensing individual bags from a wound roll of continuously and detachably connected bags is disclosed.

Dispensers and dispensing systems for bags

A dispensing apparatus for header-style bags having a housing comprising a rear portion and a front cover connected to the rear portion, and a bag mount attached to the rear portion proximate the top edge thereof, the bag mount structured and arranged to engage the aperture in the packet of bags so as to hang the packet from the bag mount. The front cover is pivotally attached to the rear portion so as to be movable between a lowered, open position providing access to an interior of the housing so that a lower portion of a packet of bags hanging from the bag mount can be received in the interior of the housing, and a raised, closed position in which the housing substantially encloses the lower portion of the packet of bags while the mouth portion of the packet of bags projects above the housing to allow a bag to be grasped at an upper end thereof and removed from the packet.

Dispensing apparatus for plastic bags

Rack system

A pack of self-opening serially-arranged plastic bags of the &ldquo;star-seal&rdquo; type defining eight superimposed wall layers in the bag. Mounting tabs form a part of top portions of each of the eight layers and are positioned in superimposed positions and each includes an aperture for mounting the tabs on a tab retaining device of a rack in a non-front-side-free manner. Each of the tabs includes a mechanism for rendering the tab detachable and providing a predetermined detaching strength. In one embodiment, each of the tabs are detachable from the rack and in another embodiment, each of the tabs are detachable from the bag. A frangible bond is formed between the rear layer and the front layer of each successive bag in the pack. This frangible bond has a predetermined strength (1) which is greater than the predetermined detaching strength of two of the tabs and (2) is weaker than the predetermined detaching strength of the remaining six tabs to allow the leading bag of the pack (when pulled by a user for removal) to disengage from the pack, while (before disengagement) pulling the succeeding bag in the pack to cause detaching of the two leading of the tabs for self-opening of the succeeding bag.

Self-opening serially-arranged plastic bag pack of the star-seal type

A ventilated plastic bag particularly adapted for carrying hot food from fast food restaurants includes the following components. Front and rear wall sections are connected together to define a closed bottom area and an open top area. A handle or handles are provided in the top area and include a cut out of the front and rear wall sections creating reduced strength regions with resulting high potential for carrying around at least part of the cut out. Closely spaced micro-perforations extend through the wall sections in at least a major portion of the plastic bag other than the reduced strength regions to provide ventilation to an interior food carrying area of the plastic bag while not further weakening the reduced strength regions and increasing the potential for tearing of the bag.

Ventilated plastic bag

A pack of easy opening handleless or T-shirt type plastic bags for packaging grocery produce or the like and for being suspended from a rack for being serially opened and removed from the rack. Each type of bag includes integrally formed front and rear walls and gusseted side walls which extend inwardly towards each other and which terminate proximate each other. The walls have top portions defining an open mouth. Each T-shirt type bag includes laterally-spaced handles extending upwardly from the mouth portion on each side of the bag. The front and rear walls and gusseted side walls of each bag are folded onto each other along a longitudinal axis of the bag to define eight superimposed layers. A seal of the star seal type secures the bottoms of the eight layers together to close each bag bottom. Superimposed detachable tabs extend upwardly from the eight wall layers at the top of each bag. Each tab includes an aperture for mounting on a tab-retaining device of a rack. At least the front two tabs in each handleless bag and the front four tabs in each T-shirt type bag are front-side-free for easy opening. One form of mounting tabs for either type of bag provides tabs which are detachable from the bags and remain with the rack as the bags are removed. Another form of mounting tabs for either type of bag provides tabs which are detachable from the rack and remain with the bags as they are removed.

Easy opening plastic bag pack of the star-seal type

A pack of plastic bags which are preferably self-opening are adapted to be mounted on a support rack and leave no residue on the support rack when removed therefrom. The plastic bags include front and rear walls integrally joined at their sides and secured at their bottoms and defining an open mouth portion at the top of the walls. A detaching central tab is formed at the top of each of the walls and each has an aperture therein for mounting the central tabs on a tab retaining device on the rack. The tab of at least the rear wall has a structure to propagate a tear through the tab for detaching the tab from the rack while retaining sufficient strength in the portion of the tab above the mounting aperture to prevent premature tearing of the tab and detaching from the rack.

Plastic bag pack adapted to leave no residue on a supporting rack

A bag dispensing system is provided which includes a rack for supporting a pack of plastic bags in a generally vertical suspended position for successively removal of the bags by a user and including an elongate central tab retaining device having a predetermined width. Each of the bags in the pack have front and rear walls integrally joined at their sides and secured together at their bottoms and define an open mouth portion at the top of the walls. A detaching central tab is formed at the top of each of the bag walls and each has an aperture therein for mounting the tabs on the rack retaining device. The tab apertures of the bags have a maximum width in the relaxed condition thereof prior to be mounted on the rack retaining device which is less than the predetermined dimension of the rack retaining device and have a minimum width dimension in the stretched condition thereof after mounting on the rack retaining device which is greater than the predetermined width of the rack retaining device, so that the tab mounting apertures of each of the bags are stretched over the rack retaining device when the bags are mounted thereon to assist in complete detachment of the tabs from the rack when the bags are successively removed by the user from the rack.

T-shirt type plastic bag pack adapted to leave no residue on a

Nozzle for a plastic bag dispenser

A compact rack construction is provided for mounting a pack of thermoplastic grocery or retail product bags of the T-shirt type and which includes a frame and a pair of generally horizontally and outwardly extending laterally-spaced support arms for receiving the apertures in the handles of the bags in the pack at an outer end portion and for mounting the bag pack on a horizontal portion for consecutive opening and removal of the bags from the bag pack and from the rack. Each of the support arms include an upper surface and a lower surface extending horizontally from the frame to define the horizontal portion of the support arms therebetween and then extending upwardly from horizontal at predetermined different angles and being joined at outer ends to each other by a loop surface formed with a smooth radius to define the support arm outer end portion therebetween. The upward extension of said lower surface is offset forward with respect to the upward extension of said upper surface. This construction allows mounting of the bag pack on the support arms over the outer end portion, while providing a resistance to free movement of the handles of the bags off the outer end portion of the support arms.

Compact rack construction for mounting T-shirt type plastic bags

The invention provides self-opening polyethylene film bag stacks which do not require a separate adhesive layer between adjacent bags. The self-opening bag stack according to the invention preferably include a plurality of stacked t-shirt type high density polyethylene film bags releasably adhered together. At least an upper portion of the outer surface of the front and rear walls of each of the bags in the bag stack has been corona treated and at least one localized compressed area extends transversely through the bag stack in the upper portion of the bags such that the stack has a decreased thickness in the localized compressed area and so that adjacent outer wall corona treated surfaces defined by the localized compressed area are releasably adhered together.

Growing community of inventors

Hartsville, SC, United States of America

Harry B Wilfong, Jr