Other

R.j. Reynolds Tobacco Company

Nancy Harmon Hawley

William Robert Collett

Charles Ray Ashcraft

Calvin Wayne Henderson

Bain C McConnell

Wallace R Lassiter

Walter Bohdan

Kenneth W White

Jane Cottrell Henson

William Edward Hazlett

Michael A Warren

Daniel Klaus Self

Shannun W Clark

David L Wright

Douglas Amon Funderburk

Charles F deMey, Iii

Ellen Strickland Gossett

James G Madding, Jr

A flask-shaped package or container for packaging smoking articles, such as cigarettes, has a generally parallelepiped shape with slightly curved front and back body panels. The container comprises a body and a lid integrally molded in one-piece of a plastic material with an open bottom having an internal peripheral shoulder and a base made of a separate plastic/metal foil laminate that is bonded to the shoulder by induction heating a heat-activated adhesive covering the metal foil of the base. The body has a central internal front-to-back stiffening rib and an access opening in its top and front panels with a surrounding ledge to which is adhesively bonded a removable foil closure. After the access opening is closed with the foil closure, cigarettes are inserted into the container body through the open bottom thereof. A protective paperboard liner that prevents adherence between the heat-activated adhesive and the cigarettes is inserted into the open bottom and supported by the central rib and the cigarettes. The base laminate is then inserted into the open bottom and bears on the shoulder so that when the adhesive is activated by induction heating, the base bonds to the shoulder and seals the container. An adhesive-backed label wrap with brand specific indicia is applied to the outer surfaces of the container.

Flask-shaped cigarette container and method of packaging cigarettes

The invention provides package inspection systems which are capable of high speed sensing and evaluation of package integrity as packages are continuously conveyed in the manufacturing process. The systems are capable of measuring predetermined parameters of packages, e.g. cigarette packages, comparing the measured parameters with predetermined values, evaluating from the measured parameters the integrity of the packages and determining whether such packages are acceptable or, alternatively, should be rejected. The system can additionally obtain and store data on sensed package parameters for evaluating long-term and short-term manufacturing trends. In various embodiments of the invention, the system can inspect a single or plural package side(s), employing a single or plural line scan or area array camera(s) and may employ special optics to enable plural package side images to be obtained using a single camera. The invention also provides improved conveying systems for package inspection and master part detect systems which can be employed to obviate the need for synchronization between the inspection system and the conveying system.

Package inspection system

Growing community of inventors

Clemmons, NC, United States of America

Nancy Harmon Hawley