Patent Publication Number: US-2007119915-A1

Title: Carton structure with seal-assistant ears

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
      (1) Field of the Invention  
      The invention relates to one type of carton structures, and specifically to such kind of carton structures whose seal plates have seal-assistant ears.  
      (2) Description of the Prior Art  
      Please refer to  FIG. 1 , a schematic view of a well-known carton structure  1 , where shows on the left side an unfolded plane status (i.e., the status of the carton structure just manufactured) and on the right top side a three-dimensional aspect of the carton structure after assembled. The carton structure  1  (particularly made of corrugated papers) used for carrying objects comprises a circling peripheral plate  10 , four reinforcing plates  12  extended from two opposing sides of outer rims  101  of the circling peripheral plate  10 , and the four seal plates  14  separated by the reinforcing plates  12  at intervals and extended from two other sides of the outer rims  101  of the circling peripheral plate  10 .  
      Please refer to the three-dimensional schematic on the right side of  FIG. 1 , where the circling peripheral plate  10  is delimited by dashed lines (the dashed lines shown in figure crease during assembling carton  1 ) into four sections, thereby connecting its front end and back end to form circling sides of an empty tetragon container for the carton  1 . After the circling peripheral plate  10  of the carton  1  is connected, the reinforcing plates  12  can be folded towards the center of the open ends and cover two opposing open ends formed by the circling peripheral plate  10 , while the seal plates  14 , extended from the circling peripheral plate  10  and separated by the reinforcing plates  12  at intervals, are used for covering the reinforcing plates  12 . A well-known cubic carton structure is therefore formed after the circling peripheral plate  10  is connected, the reinforcing plates  12  is folded and met, and the seal plates  14  is aligned and sealed.  
      As everybody knows, the object of cartons is for carrying objects. As regards the structure, it still maintains a limited feature of “analogous four-bar linkage motion” caused by the open ends formed by the circling peripheral plates  10  because the seal plates  14  on either top or bottom side (normally on the top side) of the carton have not been aligned and sealed; that is, the open ends of the carton  1  will be transformed along the parallel directions when external forces are applied. Concerning prior arts, the most likely external forces making the open ends of circling peripheral plate  10  distorted along with the type of “analogous four-bar linkage motion” is the forces arisen from objects disposed in the carton  1  with bad arrangement.  
      Please refer to  FIG. 2 , where folding the two seal plates  14  to match in line may cause a “dislocation” phenomenon as shown in the figure because the structure of the carton  1  is distorted by external forces before the open ends are sealed. Certainly, with a “relevant manipulation” by workers (such as rearranging the objects inside the carton, applying another external force to push or pull the circling plate  10  to a precise cubic shape, or using adhesive tape with force and sticking it on the plate  10 , . . . , and so on), the carton  1  can finally be sealed; however, “relevant manipulation” heretofore known may normally become an operation of time-consuming or human resource wasting if human resource is limited or if a large carton structure is applied.  
      Thereafter, to cope with the limited human resource and facilitate required operation of sealing, improving the prior art of carton structures heretofore known is necessary.  
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
      The object of the present invention is to provide one kind of improved carton structure equipping a positioning ear in advance on the seal plates of carton as an assistant positioning structure during sealing process, thereby effectively avoiding the dislocation phenomenon occurred when sealing the carton structure heretofore known.  
      An improved carton structure of the present invention comprises a circling peripheral plate and a plurality of seal plates used for covering two opposing open ends of the peripheral plate where a seal plate has two corresponding lateral edges which need to be aligned with the outer rim of the peripheral plate while the seal plate is covering an open end of the peripheral plate. It is characterized in that at least one of the lateral edges of at least one of the seal plates may extend with a seal-assistant ear being creased and folded towards the peripheral plate while the seal plates are covering the corresponding open ends of the peripheral plate, thereby aligning the lateral edges of seal plates with the outer rims of the peripheral plate.  
      In an embodiment of the present invention, two lateral edges of the seal plates of the carton structure have their own seal-assistant ear.  
      In an embodiment of the present invention, two corresponding lateral edges of every seal plate of the carton have their own seal-assistant ear.  
      In an embodiment of the present invention, the seal-assistant ear of the carton structure has sticky strip for sticking and fixing it to the circling peripheral plate where the ear is folded toward.  
      In an embodiment of the present invention, a positioning hole is located at relevant place on the peripheral plate of the carton structure and provides positioning function for the corresponding seal-assistant ear to penetrate through when the ear is folded toward the peripheral plate.  
      In an embodiment of the present invention, the improved carton structure has a plurality of dashed lines, which associates with two corresponding seal-assistant ears on the same seal plate to facilitate the opening of the sealed carton.  
      In the present invention the seal-assistant ear of the improved carton structure may be set at end, middle, or any appropriate section along the edges of the seal plate.  
      In order that examiner can further understand and approve this invention, a detailed consideration of the ensuing description and drawings is illustrated as follows. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       FIG. 1  shows a schematic of a well-known carton structure where on the left side shows an unfolded plane of the carton structure and on the right top side shows a three-dimensional schematic of the assembled carton structure.  
       FIG. 2  shows a three-dimensional schematic for the operation of the well-known carton from  FIG. 1 .  
       FIG. 3  shows an unfolded plane schematic of the first embodiment for the improved carton structure of the present invention.  
       FIG. 4  shows an assembled three-dimensional schematic of the improved carton structure from  FIG. 3 .  
       FIG. 5  shows a zoom-in schematic of a seal-assistant ear on one side of the carton from  FIG. 4  after the carton has been sealed by seal tape.  
       FIG. 6  shows an unfolded schematic of the second embodiment for the improved carton structure of the present invention. 
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT  
      In the following description, to maintain the consistent technology description of the present invention, parts with same function but subtle difference in shapes will also use the same terms and drawing notations in various embodiments.  
      Please refer to  FIG. 3  and  FIG. 4 , an unfolded plane schematic of the first embodiment of the carton structure of the present invention and its three-dimensional assemblage schematic, respectively, where in  FIG. 4  seal plate  14  is in the situation that carton  1  is still not sealed. The embodiment is exemplified by a cubic carton.  
      As shown in the figure, improved carton structure  1  of the prevent invention comprises a circling plate  10  (delimited by dashed lines as shown in  FIG. 3 ) formed by four sections, a plurality of seal plates  14  for covering the open ends  20  at two opposing sides of circling peripheral plate  10  connected, and reinforcing plates  12  separated by the seal plates  14  in interval.  
      In the present invention, the relationship of the relative positions or the method of sticking or covering with regard to circling plates  10 , reinforcing plates  12 , and seal plates  14  during the assemblage of carton structure  1  is the same as that of the prior art of carton structure, thereby no more description with redundancy here.  
      As shown in the figure, seal plate  14  has two corresponding lateral edges  140 , which should be aligned with the open rims  101  of circling plate  10 , when it covers open end  20  of circling plate  10  and then carton  1  is sealed. The major feature of carton  1  of the present invention is that at least one of the edges  140  of at least one of the seal plates  14  extends with a seal-assistant ear  141 , which can be bent and folded towards peripheral  10  while seal plate  14  covers on corresponding open end  20 , thereby facilitating to align edge  140  of seal plate  14  with outer rim  101  of peripheral plate  10  and further avoiding the “dislocation” phenomenon when sealing carton  1 .  
      As shown in the figure, two corresponding seal-assistant ears of seal plate  14  of carton  1  of the present invention are linked along their bottom edges with a dashed line  145 , which can be formed by creasing or punching holes, and the like, thereby facilitating to open carton  1  by tearing seal plate  14  along the track appeared by the help of dashed line  145  after carton  1  is sealed.  
      Please refer to  FIG. 5 , a zoom-in schematic of one seal-assistant ear  141  sealed by a seal tape  3  from improved carton structure  1  of  FIG. 4 . During the sealing process of carton  1  of the present invention, seal plate  14  can be properly positioned on peripheral plate  10  with the help of seal-assistant ear  141  so as to effectively avoid or correct a likely “dislocation” phenomenon, thereby facilitate to stick seal tape  3  to carton  1 . On the other hand, as to a relevant stick of seal tape  3  to two seal plates  14  (as shown in the figure seal tape  3  does not completely cover seal-assistant ear  141 ), employing the turnover (as the arrow indicates) of seal-assistant ear  141  and the guideline along dashed line  145  can facilitate to tear away seal tape  3  and to open carton structure  1  while destroying the seal of carton  1 .  
      The first embodiment of the improved carton structure is illustrated in  FIG. 3  and  FIG. 4 . The carton has seal-assistant ears  141  merely set at two corresponding edges  140  of two seal plate  14  at one side of circling plate  10 . In other words, seal-assistant ears  141  are merely set at seal plates  14  at one side of carton after assembled.  
      Please refer to  FIG. 6 , an unfolded plane schematic of the second embodiment of carton  1  of the present invention. In this embodiment, each seal plate  14  has two seal-assistant ears  141 ; in other words, every seal plates  14  at both sides of circling peripheral plate  10  are equipped with seal-assistant ears  141  for auxiliary positioning when assembling carton  1 . Also, as shown in the figure the seal plates  14  of one side of carton structure  1  of the embodiment have dashed lines  145 , but those of the other side do not. As regards this embodiment, the side with dashed lines  145  should be placed on the top of carton  1  when being assembled.  
      In the prevent invention folding seal-assistant ears  141  towards circling peripheral plate  10  so as to help seal plates  14  disposed properly at improved carton structure  1  can typically facilitate the sealing process for workers. Certainly, if seal-assistant ears  141  can be effectively fastened on circling peripheral plate  10 , the effectiveness of positioning becomes more confirmed. The pre-operating of “effective fastening” can not only use seal tape to fasten seal-assistant ears  141  on circling peripheral plate  10  in advance, but can be implemented by the following two embodiments.  
      Please refer to  FIG. 7 , another schematic of embodiment of seal-assistant ears  141  of improved carton structure  1  of the present invention. In this embodiment, besides without dashed lines  145  mentioned before, seal-assistant ears  141  of seal plate  140  of carton  1  has a sticky strip  143 , thereby effectively fastening and sticking seal plates  140  to their corresponding peripheral plate  10  when seal-assistant ears  141  are folded towards circling peripheral plate  10 .  
      Please refer to  FIG. 8  and  FIG. 9 , an unfolded plane schematic of the third embodiment of carton  1  of the present invention and a zoom-in schematic of seal-assistant ear  141  at one side of carton  1 , respectively. The difference between the embodiment here and that in  FIG. 3  is that in this embodiment circling peripheral plate  10  has positioning hole  102  to its corresponding seal-assistant ear  141  at suitable place to provide corresponding seal-assistant ear  141  (particularly, ear ends  1410 ) to pass through for positioning (as shown in  FIG. 9 ) when seal-assistant ear  141  is folded towards circling peripheral plate  10 , thereby confirmedly fastening seal-assistant ear  141  to its corresponding circling peripheral plate  10 .  
      In the prevent invention seal-assistant ears  141  of improved carton structure  1  can be set at the end section of edge  140  of seal plate  141  (as shown in the above embodiments), the middle section, or even some suitable section of edge  140  with a plurality of seal-assistant ears  141 . Certainly, if seal-assistant ear  141  shifts to the middle or other sections of edge  140 , sections of reinforcing plate  12  affected by the shifting should be properly modified during manufacturing.  
      In the present invention improved carton structure  1  can be shaped as rectangular column as previous mentioned, triangular column, or any shape column for the carton.  
      In the prevent invention, the width of the seal-assistant ear compared with that of the edge located by the ear should be relevant to facilitate the seal-assistant ear to be folded by workers. Thus, the width should not be so wide that it affects the folding consistency; it should also not be so narrow that it affects the function of auxiliary positioning. In a preferred embodiment, the width of seal-assistant ear should be less than 10 cm.  
      From the description above, the improved carton structure of the present invention is employing the seal-assistant ear structure equipped in advance on the seal plate of the carton as an auxiliary positioning tool when sealing carton, thereby effectively preventing the “dislocation” phenomenon when sealing cartons.  
      The above description is using a preferred embodiment to illustrate the present invention in details and should not be construed as limiting the scope of the present invention. Those who are familiar with this art should understand that any subtle modifications and adjustments will not exempt from infringing the object and scope of this present invention.  
      From the description above, the implementation of the embodiment of this invention conforms to the requirements of invention specified by the patent law. Please examine and approve this application.