AU649174B2 - Improved container for packaging a bulk supply of discrete sheets - Google Patents

Description

f^ 649174

AUSTRALIA

Patents Act 1990 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION FOR A STANDARD PATENT r Name of Applicant: Actual.Inventors: Address for Service: AMCOR LIMITED A.C.N. 000 017 372 WILLIAM RYAN IAN McCALLUM ARTHUR De BONO CULLEN CO., Patent Trade Mark Attorneys, 240 Queen Street, Brisbane, Old. 4000, Australia.

IMPROVED CONTAINER FOR PACKAGING A BULK SUPPLY OF DISCRETE SHEETS Invention Title: 44 Details of Associated Provisional Applications: No. PL0571 The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to us:- THIS INVENTION relates to an improved container for packaging a bulk supply of discrete sheets. In particular, the invention concerns a container for sheets of paper.

Paper intended for use in printing is packaged into stacks of sheets, typically in reams and when paper is required for printing in a printing press one or more ream packets of paper are unwrapped for loading into the press ready for printing. This process results in the sheets of a ream shifting relative to one another and straight edge retention, which is desirable and necessary in the printing process, is often lost as the sheets are either dislodged as the ream is unwrapped or as the unwrapped sheets are transferred to the printing press.

This difficulty can be remedied either by re-aligning the sheets or by guillotining an edge of the sheets to once again it present a straight edge ready for the printing press. This S results in down time and wastage of paper which is either simply S discarded or collected for recycling.

A plurality of individually wrapped reams of paper are supplied to the printer in an outer container. As a consequence 26. of this a considerable quantity of packaging is involved and needs to be removed before the paper can be loaded into the oeeee printing press.

In addition, many printing runs require more paper than that present in one ream. This leads to the inconvenience of having to unwrap a plurality of individual reams of apr.

Once the reams of paper are removed from the outer container, the sheets can easily become water damaged if the environment to which they are exposed is not properly controlled.

In addition, dust and other contaminants may affect the paper. The outer container to some degree limits these difficulties but are currently not constructed to totally eliminate these problems.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a container and a container blank which at least minimises the disadvantages referred to above.

According to one aspect, the present invention provides a container made from foldable material for receiving a bulk supply of individual sheets of paper, the container including a lid having a cover panel and opposed side walls, the side walls of the container body include opposed side walls which extend completely from one corner to an adjacent corner and inwardly directed wall sections hinged to edges of the complete side walls, a container body having opposed side walls, the walls of the container body defining a plurality of body sections S. separable from one another whereby sheets of paper may be removed from the supply by separating one of the sections 20 from an adjacent said section.

The lid may have any convenient shape or configuration. The lid may also be made from a blank of foldable material. As mentioned above, the lid has a cover panel and opposed side walls. The cover panel S 25 corresponds in peripheral shape to the peripheral shape of the paper. For example, if the paper is rectangular or square then so is the cover panel. It is preferred S. .that the cover panel is rectangular in shape. Because of this, the side walls comprise two long opposed side walls and two short opposed side walls.

The blank from which the lid is made can be made from any suitable foldable material. Preferably the blank is made from fibreboard material although corrugated fibreboard material is particularly preferred.

Corrugated fibreboard consisting of one corrugated layer sandwiched between two outer liners may be used for the blank of the lid. If desired one or both of the outer liners may be constructed to include a plastic interlayer. If such an interlayer is present the resultant lid has particularly good moisture resistance.

The lid may be machine or hand erected and any suitable adhesive such as a hot melt adhesive may be employed.

The transverse s' ape of the container body matches the shape of the paper for which the container is intended. Thus, where the paper is square or rectangular, so is the transverse shape of the container body. It is preferred that the transverse shape of the container body be rectangular. With such a shape, two of the side walls of the body have a greater width than that of the other two side walls of the body.

The side walls of the container body have a height commensurate with the height of the paper for S. which the container of the invention is intended. It is preferred that the container be suitable for receiving 20 bulk sheets of paper numbering about 10,000 and for such o quantities of paper the side walls of the container may typically be about 1.2 or 1.4 metres high. It should be appreciated that these heights or given by way of example only and other heights may equally be employed in the S 25 container of the invention.

Each wall of one pair of opposed side walls of the body may extend completely from one corner to

S

S Se oSoo an adjacent corner while the walls of the other pair of opposed container body walls may\each ke made up of opposed inw-rdly directed wall sections. The wall sections preferably extend inwardly from corners of the container and at least part way from one corner towards an adjacent corner.

The body sections are preferably separated from one another by a score line or line of serrations and enable a section or sections to be removed as required. Alternatively, the body sections may be separated from one another by a tear tape like that manufactured and sold by the H. B. Fuller Company under the trade mark OPEN-SESAME. The body sections, in use, preferable define vertically spaced body sections delineated by the lines about which they may be separated.

some of the side walls of the container body depend. It is preferred that the main panel be severable from the side walls.

One way in which this may be done is to provide perforations, serrations, tear tape or a cut crease line between the main panel S and the side walls. It is particularly preferred that a cut crease line be employed. Once again, the main panel has a shape corresponding to the shape of the paper sheets and preferably is ooo0• rectangular in shape.

The container body may be made from any suitable foldable material. Preferably the container body is made from the same material as that from which the lid is made. Preferably the container body is made from corrugated fibreboard. Double faced corrugated fibreboard is preferred.

A particular preferred embodiment of the invention will 6 now be described with reference to the drawings in which: Figure 1 is a perspective view of a container according to an embodiment of the invention; and Figure 2 is a view of a blank from which the container body of the invention may be made.

With reference to Figure 2 there is shown a blank from which the container body of the invention may be made. The blank 10 has a main panel 11 from which depend opposed full side walls 13 and 14. The main panel is separated from the side walls 13, 14 by cut crease lines 18. These full side walls 13, 14 have hinged thereto about fold or crease lines 15 short side wall sections 16 and 17. The crease line 15 is in fact a cut crease line. As shown, the full side walls 13, 14 and the side wall sections have spaced parallel lines 19 along which the container .i may be separated into container sections. These lines, as described above, may be serrations, tear tape or the like or any means enabling sections of the container body to be separated from one another.

Figure 1 shows a perspective view of a container 2e: The container has a lid 21. The lid 21 includes a cover panel 22 from which depend opposed side walls 23 and 24.

ooooo The container body 30 illustrated is made from the blank of Figure 2 and has a main panel 11, opposed full side walls 13, 14 (only one of which is visible) and side wall section 16, 17 are hinged to the walls 13, 14. Lines 19 are indicative of perforations along which sections of the body may be separated from the container.

Sheets of paper 30 are housed within the container and 7 the full container is received by a pallet 31. A layer or sheet of material (not visible) such as fibreboard, paper or plastic or the like is interposed between the lowermost sheet of paper and the upper surface of the pallet. The pallet, once a loaded and closed container is placed upon it is preferable sealed by a plastic film shrink wrapped around the pallet and the container. In this condition the packaged sheets of paper are ready for shipment to the printer.

The shrink wrapped plastic is removed but only down to the desired height. Once this is done, the lid is removed but not discarded and the uppermost container body sections or section is removed to enable a desired quantity of paper to be removed from the bulk supply. The lid can be replaced and the remaining sheets of paper are thus adequately protected from the environment. The remaining shrink wrapped plastic serves to retain the remaining sections of the container body in place and when resealed in this way straight edge retention of the remaining sheets of paper is assured. In order to remove more .I sheets of paper from the supply the lid is once again removed and 2E): more of the shrink wrapped plastic is removed and further sections or a further section of the container body is removed oeooo to provide access to more of the sheets of paper.

Claims (9)

1. A container made from foldable material for receiving a bulk supply of individual sheets of paper, the container including a lid having a cover panel and opposed side walls the side walls of the container including opposed side walls which extend completely from one corner to an adjacent corner and inwardly directed wall sections hinged to edges of the complete side walls, a container body having opposed side walls, the walls of the container body defining a plurality of body sections separable from one another whereby sheets of paper may be removed from the supply by separating one of the sections from an adjacent said section.

2. The container of Claim 1 wherein the lid is made from corrugated fibreboard material consisting of a corrugated medium sandwiched between two liners with at ,go:% least one of the liners including a plastic interlayer. o

3. The container of Claim 1 wherein the complete side walls of the container body are hinged to opposite 20 edges of a main panel of the container body.

4. The container of Claim 3 wherein the main panel is severable from the complete side walls.

The container of any one of Claims 1 to 4 wherein the body sections are separated from one another 25 by a score line or line of serrations whereby the body sections may be separated from one another.

6. The container of any one of Claims 1 to 4 wherein the body sections are separated from one another oo 9 by tear tape whereby the body sections may be separated from one another.

7. The container of any one of Claims 1 to 6 wherein the container body is made from foldable corrugated fibreboard material.

8. A container substantially as herein described with reference to the drawings.

9. A container made from foldable material, a plurality of individual sheets of paper arranged in a stack within the container, the container having a container body, the body having a substantially U shaped configuration with a main panel, two opposed side walls hinged to the main panel and each extending completely from one corner to an adjacent corner of the container, inwardly directed wall sections hinged to free edges of the complete side walls, score lines or lines of serrations extending along the complete side walls and the wall sections end defining body sections severable from one another, a lid located over the main panel and having opposed side walls extending part way over the complete side walls and the wall sections of the container body and shrink wrapped plastic extending around the container. DATED this twenty-eighth day of February 1994 AMCOR LIMITED by their Patent Attorneys •CULLEN CO. o S