Patent ID: 7288081

Claim:
A disposable wearing article having a longitudinal direction and a transverse direction orthogonal to each other, said article comprising: a front waist region; a rear waist region; a crotch region; each of said regions having a pair of side edges opposed to each other in said transverse direction, and opposite inner and outer surfaces, the inner surface being adapted to face a wearer's skin in use and the outer surface being adapted to face away from the wearer's skin in use; connector sheet strips attached to one of said front and rear waist regions in a vicinity of the associated side edges; and elastic members attached in stretched state to said one waist region so as to be contractible in the transverse direction; said one waist region being formed with gathers and undulating in said transverse direction between said side edges under contraction of said elastic members; each of said connector sheet strips respectively comprising: a proximal section fixed to the inner surface of said one waist region in the vicinity of one of said associated side edges; a flap section moveable between a first position where said flap section extends in the transverse direction inward from said proximal section and a second position where said flap section extends in the transverse direction outward from said proximal section, said flap section having a surface that is opposed to said inner surface of said one waist region when the flap section is in the first position; and a fastening element provided on said surface of said flap section and releasably engageable with the outer surface of the other waist region; wherein said one waist region has zones immediately adjacent bonding sites where the proximal sections of the connector sheet strips are bonded to the respective side edges of said one waist region, said zones being located inboard of the adjacent bonding sites and formed with said gathers; and wherein a flexural rigidity of each said flap section as measured in said transverse direction is higher than that of said one waist region as measured in said zones.