The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 30, 2003
Filed:
Mar. 13, 2001
Robert J. McHenry, St. Charles, IL (US);
Thomas Tung, Barrington, IL (US);
Rexam Beverage Can Company, Chicago, IL (US);
Abstract
A resealable closure for beverage containers uses initial physical interference to initiate a seal between a sealing flap and a dispensing port in a lid of the resealable closure. Once the initial seal is achieved, a pressure differential develops, resulting in additional force tending to bias the sealing flap toward the dispensing port. The sealing flap is actuated by an external drive means, that can also be a dust cover to prevent debris from contaminating any surfaces that may come into contact with the contents of the beverage container. There is a slack between initial movement of the external drive means and initial movement of the sealing flap, during which the pressure differential is preferably equalized through the unsealing of a vent hole in the resealable closure.