Anchor Hocking Packaging Company

Anchor Hocking, LLC

Carnaudmetalbox (Holdings) USA Inc.

Thomas H Hayes

Lewis C LoMaglio

Charles S Ochs

Carl E Koontz

Cyril Hadyn Saunders

Lewis C Lo Maglio

A composite closure for a container has a moulded plastics band (,) closed at one end by a plastics sure disc (,) which is held captive within a recess formed around the band interior. Also on the band interior is a screw thread (,) by which the closure may attached to a container neck (,). The disc is cut from flat plastics sheet and is initially plane. However, when the closure is fitted to the container a marginal edge region,surrounding the container neck is deformed downwardly to generally frustoconical form.

Composite closure, method for assembling it and method for closing a container with it

A package has a 'push-pull' type dispensing closure either threadably engaged with or in press-fit engagement with the container mouth. The closure includes an outer skirt that is pliable and inwardly deformable when squeezed and a dispenser plug member selectively positionable to seal or unseal a dispensing orifice. The container has a mouth and a shoulder below the mouth which slants upwardly and inwardly. When the outer skirt of the closure is squeezed inwardly, the lower skirt edge engages the shoulder causing an upward camming of the closure, whereby the plug member unseals the dispensing orifice.

Package with push-pull dispensing closure

A closure is formed from a laminate or composite. The laminate is sufficiently flexible to permit it to assume the surface configuration of the rim of a closure without the need for a gasket. The laminate may include an upper layer which is rigid and a lower layer which is softer and has a lower softening temperature than the upper layer. An optional intermediate oxygen-impermeable layer such as ethylene vinyl alcohol can be included between the upper and lower layers. Preferably, the upper layer is a rigid material such as polyethylene terephthalate or polyvinyl chloride and the lower layer is a soft material such as linear low-density polyethylene. The upper layer provides the necessary strength, while the lower layer provides a tight seal on the rim of the container. The intermediate or bottom layer can also include an oxygen indicator which changes color upon exposure to oxygen.

Plastic closure

An all-plastic, hinged, tamper-evidencing closure includes an upper closure surface or top with a hinge formed therein. The hinge may be a straight line, or curved or arcuate so as to provide a snap-action for opening and closing. The closure includes a peripherally depending skirt which has structure for removably retaining the closure on a container, such as a snap head or threads. Additionally, the skirt includes tamper-evidencing structure. The closure top surface may be planar, concave or convex, or it may be initially planar, but when subject to vacuum or pressure it becomes concave or convex, respectively. This latter feature provide a visual indicator that the vacuum seal or pressure seal of the container is intact.

Hinged tamper-evidencing closure

A closure fitting is provided for a container which itself has no threads or other closure securing means formed on it. The fitting, which can be pressed down over the mouth of a container, provides its own securing means by which an outer, closure portion of the fitting can be removed from and resecured to an inner attachment portion which remains on the container after opening. The closure fitting may have a stretchable or distendable conical hoop molded inside a surrounding skirt. Cooperating sets of threads, lugs, or the like are formed on the outer face of the conical hoop and on the inner face of the skirt. In the closure as formed, the closure securing means of the hoop do not operably engage those of the skirt. They are progressively brought into cooperating engagement by stretching and enlarging the hoop outwardly as the closure fitting is press-fitted onto a container. The hoop is severably joined to the skirt; twisting or otherwise removing the skirt from the hoop in the first opening breaks the connections of the hoop to the skirt, so that the closure can be removed from the hoop. The closure can thereafter be used in the same manner as a conventional closure.

Closure fitting for unthreaded containers

Combined container, closure and shrink wrap seal

Tamper evidencing structure for a closure

Press-on, pry-off closure for microwavable vacuum sealed container

Easily removable press-on, pry-off closures having movable insert disks in an outer shell are disclosed. Pressing the shell upward to remove it from a container first pries a protrusion inside the shell over a snap rib around the container, then moves the shell upward relative to the disk while the later remains seated on the container, until a disk-lifting projection inside the shell engages the edge of the disk and lifts the disk to break the seal. A tamper evidencing band, if included, is broken before either the shell is pried off or the disk is lifted. The invention can be used in both top load and bottom load embodiments. Also disclosed is a closure with a non-movable disk or integral top and a tamper-evidencing band which is broken by pry-off removal of the closure.

Press-on pry-off closure

Easily removable press-on, pry-off closures having movable insert disks in an outer shell are disclosed. Pressing the shell upward to remove it from a container first pries a protrusion inside the shell over a snap rib around the container, then moves the shell upward relative to the disk while the later remains seated on the container, until a disk-lifting projection inside the shell engages the edge of the disk and lifts the disk to break the seal. A tamper evidencing band, if included, is broken before either the shell is pried off or the disk is lifted. The invention can be used in both top load and bottom load embodiments. Also disclosed is a closure with a non-movable disk or integral top and a tamper-evidencing band which is broken by pry-off removal of the closure. Still further, food packages which automatically open when heated in microwave ovens are disclosed. Vacuum-packed food packages having effective head spaces for reducing the times required to retort such packages are also disclosed.

Vacuum-sealed food container having press-on, pry-off closure

A container for fluent material having a nozzle for dispensing the material with the nozzle being moved into dispensing position and also being actuated by a slidably mounted container cover. The container may be, for instance, a pressurized container for dispensing an aerosol product or a pump container equipped with, for example, a ball check valve for dispensing a fluent mass material.

Pressurized dispenser package

A snap-on closure for wide mouth containers has an integral hinged lid which can be lifted, as by the thumb, to provide access for spooning contents out of the mouth. The lid closes on a top flange which is presented by either the closure or the container. The closure has a skirt and snaps onto the container below the top flange or to an attachment bead on the container.

Closure for a wide mouth container

A closure for a container has a skirt with a frangibly attached tamper indicating band having a band retaining element in the form of a conical hoop. The hoop is hinged to the band by arcuate hinges which are spaced by ports along the hinge line, the ports extending part way toward but not to the distal edge of the hoop. The band is connected to the skirt along a circumferential score line. Another line of weakness, generally parallel to the axis of the closure, extends across the width of the band from the circumferential score line downwardly to the hinge line between the hoop and the tamper evidencing band, and the hoop is split or separated from the hinge line, inwardly to its distal edge. The hoop is under hoop stress in its upfolded configuration and that stress causes the band to break and spring open when the closure is removed from a container, thereby providing more visible evidence of such removal and facilitating resealing. The hoop may be connected to the closure skirt so that the band and the hoop will remain attached to the closure upon opening, rather than separating, thereby obviating a possible source of litter.

Closure having a spring open tamper evidencing band

A closure for a container has a tamper indicating band with a band retainer in the form of an apertured flap or hoop which is hinged to the lower edge of the band. A series of windows open through the retainer, extending toward but not to its distal edge. As the retainer is turned inside out from its as-molded position to its use position, its distal and/or hinged edges deform to relieve compression and permit the retainer to be inverted by direct downward pushing force. As a result of the deformation, the retainer in its use position may, depending on the number and size of windows, have an advantageous polygonal peripheral shape rather than a circular shape.

Tamper indicating closure having retaining hoop with relief windows

Inadvertent rupture of frangible tamper evidencing means during application of threaded closures is reduced by axially pressing the closure partially onto the container, without rotating the closure, until a downwardly tapered retaining means on the closure is engaged by an upwardly tapered locking rib around the container finish. This engagement centers and positions the closure so that the axis of the closure is aligned with the container axis. The closure is held in alignment to prevent cocking or misengagement of the threads until the closure is thereafter turned to tighten it on the container.

Growing community of inventors

Lancaster, OH, United States of America

Thomas H Hayes