Patent ID: 6253930
Filing Date: 2001-07-03
Classification: A47F,B65D

Abstract:
A dispensing carton assembly for dispensing rollable product members having coaxial circular ends of the same diameter, the carton assembly comprising:a container fabricated from a first corrugated board material with a first thickness and having a bottom, forward and rearward end walls, two side walls and a closable top; anda guide structure fabricated from a second corrugated board material with a second thickness, the guide structure including an upper guide element, at least one intermediate guide element, and a lower guide element disposed in at least close proximity with an inside surface of each side wall, said guide elements extending from the sidewalls forming edges having a width equal to the second thickness to define spaced apart ramp surfaces to support opposite end portions of the rollable product members such that the rollable product members are supported only at their edges, and being disposed in at least close proximity with one wall being mirror images of the corresponding guide elements disposed in at least close proximity with the other side wall and being correspondingly positioned with respect to their respective side walls, said intermediate and said lower guide elements providing pairs of narrow sloping edges in parallel spaced relationship, said pairs of parallel spaced edges maintaining the product members in a row comprising zig-zag row segments one above the other,said container having a dispensing opening in said forward wall sized to enable the forwardmost and lowermost of the product members to be extracted from said dispensing carton assembly, a low retaining wall comprising a part of said forward wall below said dispensing opening, said retaining wall being sized to retain each product member when it becomes the forwardmost and lowermost product member, said upper guide elements having parallel spaced lower edges positioned in parallel with the narrow sloping edges of the at least one intermediate guide element to maintain the product members in proper position, regardless of the orientation of the dispensing carton assembly, said upper guide elements being of such length as to permit loading of the dispensing carton assembly from the top.