Packaging

Nov. 9, 1965

3,216,645

R. R. HEMANN PACKAGING Filed Jan. 15, 1964

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United States Patent Office

3,216,645

Patented Nov. 9, 1965

3,216,645 PACKAGING

Ronald R. Hemann, New Douglas, III., assignor to Alton Box Board Company, Alton, III., a corporation of Delaware

Filed Jan. 15, 1964, Ser. No. 337,802

Claims. (CI. 229—52)

This invention relates generally to packaging, and particularly to the application of handles to cartons and containers.

While the art abounds with instances in which cartons and containers have been constructed with integrated handle parts, in the case of cartons made of paperboard and the like, the provision of such a handle has required either extensive, and sometimes prohibitive, amounts of hand labor, or the provision of expensive equipment whose utility is limited to the particular carton or container at hand. In either event, the provision of such handles on cartons and containers has involved an expense which has largely limited their application.

The object of the present invention, generally stated, is to provide a simple, cheap, and easily installed handle for a carton or container which may be used or not, depending upon the will of the packer or the consumer, and which is universally applicable to packages of various sorts and sizes.

Generally stated, the invention contemplates the provision of a handle plate made of paperboard, or other suitable material, having a tongue part either integral with it, or otherwise securely connected to it, and which, when inserted on the interior of a carton or container and aligned with the hole in the exterior wall thereof, may be pulled through the hole at will, and used as a handle, or retracted to inoperative position within the container.

'More specifically, the invention contemplates such a handle plate in which a tongue is incised from the body thereof so as to leave one end of the tongue rooted in cantilever fashion to the body of the plate, while at its opposite end, the tongue is provided with an enlarged head portion; and between the root end and the head end of the tongue, there is a slender elongated section suitable for gripping in the hand, and made somewhat longer than a cooperating hole to be provided in the exterior wall of a carton or container, and through which the slender portion of the tongue may be drawn from the interior to the exterior to serve such purposes.

One embodiment of the invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawing, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a perspective view of a carton provided with a handle constructed in accordance with the present invention;

FIGURE 2 is a plan view of the blank from which the handled carton of FIGURE 1 is made;

FIGURE 3 is a sectional view taken along line 3__3 of FIGURE 2;

FIGURE 4 is a sectional view taken along line 4—4 of FIGURE 2, and showing in dotted lines the position of the head of the tongue when the handle is in use;

FIGURE 5 is a sectional view taken along line 5—5, and showing in dotted lines the position of the tongue relative to the contents of the package when the handle is in use;

FIGURE 6 is a perspective view of an exterior wall of a carton appropriately punched for use with the form of handle plate shown in FIGURE 7;

FIGURE 7 is a perspective view of the handle plate.

The carton or container to which the handle plate of the present invention is applied may be of any chosen style or construction, and that shown in the drawings is merely to illustrate a typical container or carton with which the handle plate of the present invention may be selectively combined, and used or not as desired. The form of container illustrated is of a type commonly used for packing twenty-four cans of beer, and is shown generally in U.S. Patent No. 2,990,992.

In the form shown, the carton 1 is made from a blank, shown in full lines in FIGURE 2, which consists of a number of panels (each of which becomes a confining wall of the final carton) and flaps, including a panel 2 selected as the one upon which to provide a handle, it being understood, however, that the handle may be provided on any chosen panel of the container which ultimately becomes one of its confining walls. The container illustrated may be identical with other containers out of the same production lot which are not equipped with handles. In other words, from a given production lot, some may be selected to be provided with handles, while others may be selected to go unequipped with handles. In such case, the only difference between the blanks made for use with handles and the blanks made for use without handles is the provision in the former of a bowtie-shaped hole 3. Indeed, in many situations, the entire production run of the cartons may be provided with such holes, and the handle applied to only some of them, while the balance are either left open or otherwise closed, as the handle of the present invention is of a character such that it may be applied either in the box factory or at the point of packing, or, indeed, at the point where it goes into the hands of the ultimate consumer, provided the carton blank have formed in it a hole of a configuration such as to pass the slender portion of the tongue in the handle plate now to be described.

_ The handle plate 4, in the form shown, is a rectangular piece of material, such as paperboard, from the midsection of which there is incised, or blanked out with a 'cutting die, a tongue 5. The tongue 5 preferably remains integral with the plate 4 at the root end 6 of the tongue, and is not thereadjacent operated upon in any way which would substantially reduce the strength of the junction between the root end of the tongue and the body of the plate. However, along the slender portion of tongue 5, it is desirable to provide a series of spaced score lines 7, on the underside thereof, to facilitate bending of the tongue into conformity with a hand which grips it in use. At its opposite end, the tongue 5 is provided with a head 8 having, at its proximal side, a pair of shoulders 9 of a width substantially greater than the slender intermediate part of tongue 5. Where the handle plate is provided in a container wherein the contents, such as can C, are disposed so as to interfere (as shown in FIGURE 5) with downward movement of head 8 relative to the body of plate 4, the plate 4 is cut out adjacent shoulders 9 to provide an opening 10 of width no less than shoulders 9, and extending toward the root end 6 for a distance sufficient to permit movement of head 8 in the plane of plate 4 until it clears the crest of can C and can move downwardly into the space between adjacent cans into the position shown in dotted lines in FIGURE 5. The plate 4 is further cut out adjacent the intermediate portion of tongue 5 to leave open spaces 11 for a purpose later to be described.

As wiil be observed from FIGURES 2 and 6, the hole 3 in panel 2 of the carton blank is provided with arcuate enlargements 12 at the center thereof. The arcuate enlargements 12 correspond in size and configuration to the open spaces 11 in plate 4, and are intended to be aligned with each other when the handle plate is applied to the carton or carton blank. When thus aligned, the open spaces 11, together with the arcuate enlargements 12, provide access from the exterior for fingers to grip the

3,316,645 tongue 5 and draw it outwardly into the arched condition shown clearly in FIGURE 1, and shown in dotted lines in FIGURES 4 and 5.

Given a carton blank provided with a hole, such as 3, in a position where it is desired to apply a handle and 5 of size sufficient to accommodate the passage therethrough of the slender intermediate portion of tongue 5, the plate 4 can readily be applied to the underside of the panel, such as 2. In so applying it, the openings 11 and 12 are aligned with each other as aforesaid, so that the head 8 of tongue 5 extends outwardly beyond the nearest terminus of hole 3, and the root end 6 is adjacent the opposite terminus of hole 3 as shown clearly in FIGURE 5. The plate 4 may, if desired, be connected to panel 2 by adhesive, stapling, or otherwise, provided no part of 15 tongue 5 (including head 8 and root end 6) be so secured. In many instances, however, it is unnecessary to positively connect plate 4 to panel 2, or any other portion of the carton, as the contained merchandise will serve to hold it in position where the intermediate portion of tongue 5 is 20 accessible for gripping through openings 12 from the exterior; and the construction is such that, particularly when plate 4 is of dimension substantially corresponding to the dimensions of the panel to which it is applied, no positive connection between the two is necessary because 25 the strains imparted by the load of the contents are sustained by the plate 4. In any event, the tongue 5 must be of sufficient strength to sustain such load, and consequently any tendency to tear occurs within the plate 4, and not within panel 2 of the carton. Adequate strength 30 for such purpose can readily be built into plate 4, as, for example, with a carton of the character and for the purpose described, plate 4 may be made of three plies of ninety-pound Kraft Liner laminated together, with the grain of at least the two outer plies running in the 35 direction indicated by the arrow in FIGURE 7. As clearly shown by the dotted lines in FIGURE 5, when the handle is in operative position, the load is sustained at one end of tongue 5 by engagement between shoulders 9 and the underside of plate 4 at the proximal end of 40 openings 10. At the other end of tongue 5, the load is transmitted to the body of plate 4 through the root end of the tongue, and any tendency to tear at this position is alleviated by the provision of slits 13 flaring outwardly at an angle of about 45°. Such slits relieve excessive 45 concentrations of stress at the junction between the root end 6 and the body of plate 4, and thereby minimize the tendency to tear.

When, as shown in FIGURE 2, the panel opposite panel 2 is equipped for ripping, more or less in line with 50 a vertical center plane through the completed package shown in FIGURE 1, and it is desired that panel 2 act as a hinge, and for this purpose is provided with discontinuous slits 14 in its end flaps, the handle plate 4 may be provided with longitudinally extending, centrally dis- 55 posed, slits 15 and 16. When the plate 4 is applied to the carton or its blanks, slits 15 and 16 may be aligned with discontinuous slits 14, and thus panel 2 is permitted readily to fold along a line extending generally between opposite slits 14 and thereby act as a hinge in the process 60 of opening the . package. In practice, the slits 15 and 16, if terminated a quarter to a half-inch away from the root end 6 and the head 8 of tongue 5, do not substantially impair the load-carrying capacity of the handle; and the plate 4 does not prevent folding of panel 2, as above described, in the process of opening.

While, in the embodiment described, plate 4 is made entirely separate from the blank of the carton or container, it is to be understood that, under many circum- γθ stances and conditions, it may be desirable to form the plate as a flap adjacent the panel in which the handle is desired. This may be done by folding the flap back beneath the panel provided with the hole to accommodate tongue 5, and then providing the manufacturer’s 75 joint of the carton or container at the corner where the flap constituting plate 4 Was infolded.

From the foregoing description, those skilled in the art should readily understand that the invention accomplishes its objects and provides a universally applicable handle which may be applied with great facility to any package having a hole of size and configuration such as to accommodate the passage of the intermediate section of tongue 5, and without necessitating complicated or expensive operations either in the initial manufacture of the container blank or in the process of its assembly.

While the foregoing disclosure illustrates one form in which the invention may be applied to a typical carton or container, it is not to be understood that the invention is limited to the form of package, or the form of handle plate, shown in the drawings and heretofore described in detail. On the contrary, it is to be distinctly understood that the invention is applicable at large to cartons, containers, and other packages wherein a hole is, or can be, provided to accommodate the passage of the slender portion of a tongue, such as 5, from the interior to the exterior. Many modifications, adaptations and variations of the form shown in the accompanying drawings will inevitably present themselves to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of this invention, and consequently it is to be distinctly understood that the invention is not limited to the details of the foregoing disclosure.