AU720731B3

AU720731B3 - Container

Info

Publication number: AU720731B3
Application number: AU48764/99A
Authority: AU
Inventors: John Laurendi
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1999-09-16
Filing date: 1999-09-16
Publication date: 2000-06-08
Anticipated expiration: 2001-06-08

Description

P/00/012 Regulation 3.2

AUSTRALIA

PATENTS ACT 1990 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION FOR A PETTY PATENT Name of Applicant: Address of Applicant: Actual Inventor: Address for Service: JOHN LAURENDI Lot 42 Sutcliffe Road Geraldton Western Australia 6530 JOHN LAURENDI GRIFFITH HACK, Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys, 256 Adelaide Terrace, Perth 6000, Western Australia,

AUSTRALIA

Petty Complete Specification for the invention entitled:

CONTAINER

The following is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to me:

CONTAINER

The present invention relates to a multi-compartment container.

The present invention was developed to facilitate an expeditious and convenient means for preparing Communion at church services. Hitherto, Communion is typically prepared at each church service. This involves providing a plurality of cups in which juice or come other beverage is poured and breaking one or more biscuits into small individual pieces to be taken with each serving of beverage. Any unused beverage or portions of biscuit are thrown away and thus wasted. In addition, the actual preparation for the Communion in providing cups, pouring beverage and breaking biscuits is time consuming. When the cups used are not disposable, further time is taken in cleaning the cups in a manner to allow reuse.

One embodiment of the present invention provides a container having a first compartment provided with juice and a second compartment for holding a piece of biscuit. However, as will be apparent from the following description, embodiments of the present invention can be used in a variety of different applications and hold a variety of different substances.

According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a multi-compartment container comprising at least: a first compartment for containing a first substance, the first compartment having an opening through which the first substance can be dispensed; a first frangible seal for sealing said opening; and, a second frangible seal formed over and attached to the first seal, the first and second frangible seals defining therebetween a second compartment for containing a second substance; whereby, in use, said second compartment is opened to dispense the second substance by breaking the second seal and the first compartment can be opened by breaking the first seal to allow dispensing of the first substance through the opening.

-3- Preferably said first and second seals are in the form of respective sheets of material.

Preferably each of said sheets of material is pliable.

Preferably each of said first and second seals is provided with a respective tab which can be manually gripped to facilitate individual breaking of each seal.

Preferably the tabs are offset relative to each other.

Preferably the first and second seals are arranged so that the force required to break the second seal is less than the force required to break the first seal so that pulling on the tab of the second seal causes opening of the second compartment in preference to opening of the first compartment.

In one embodiment, the second seal is attached to the second seal by means of heat bonding and the first seal is attached to the first compartment by means of an adhesive.

In an alternate embodiment, the second seal is attached to the first seal in the same manner as the first seal is attached to the first compartment and said second seal is provided with a line of weakness.

An embodiment of the present invention will now be described by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 is a schematic exploded view of a container in accordance with the present invention; Figure 2 is a top view of the container shown in Figure 1; and, Figure 3 is a side view of the container shown in Figures 1 and 2.

-4- Referring to the accompanying drawings, the multi-compartment container comprises a first compartment in the form of a cup 12 for containing a first substance such as fruit juice (not shown), the cup 12 having an opening 14 at its upper end through which the juice can be dispensed; a first frangible seal 16 for sealing the opening 14, and a second frangible seal 18 that is formed over the first seal 16 to define a second compartment 20 therebetween for containing a second substance in the form of a biscuit 22. In use, the second compartment 20 can be opened to dispense the biscuit 22 by breaking the second seal 18 and the cup 12 can be opened by breaking the first seal 16 to allow dispensing of the juice through the opening 14.

The seals 16 and 18 are made from respective separate sheets of material most preferably a pliable material such as plastics or metal foils. It is not necessary for the materials from which the seals 16 and 18 are made to be the same. That is, for example, seal 16 can be made from a metal foil while seal 18 is made from a sheet of plastics material.

The first and second seals 16, 18 are provided with tabs 24, 26 respectively. As most clearly shown in Figure 2, the tabs 24 and 26 are offset relative to each other about the cup 12. This allows for manual gripping of the tabs 24 and 26 to facilitate breaking of the corresponding seals 16 and 18.

The first and second seals 16, 18 are arranged so that the force required to break the second seal 18 is less than the force required to break the first seal 16. This is done to ensure preferential opening of the second compartment 20 in favour of the cup 12 when pulling on the tab 26 of the second seal 18. It is desirable that when pulling on the tab 26, the second seal 18 is broken away from the first seal 16, while the first seal 16 remains intact maintaining the seal on the cup 12. This form of preferential sealing can be achieved in numerous ways. One is to attach the second seal 18 to the first seal 16 in a different manner to that of attaching the first seal 16 to the cup 12. This may involve simply using different types of glues or adhesives or completely different bonding or fastening mechanisms. It is envisaged that in one embodiment, the seal 18 would be attached to the seal 16 by a heat bond such as heat welding while the first seal 16 is attached about the periphery of the opening 14 by means of an adhesive where the force required to break the adhesive bond is greater than that required to break the heat bond. In an alternate method, the seal 18 could be provided with a line of weakness that would favour the tearing of the second seal 18 when the tab 26 is pulled in preference to breaking of the first seal 16.

By filling the cup 12 with a juice or other drink and the compartment 20 with a piece of biscuit 22, the container 10 can form a Communion kit. The kit is able to be stored, ready for use, avoiding the need to pour individual cups with juice or other liquid and break one or more biscuits into individual pieces. When bought out for use in a church service, any container 10 not opened can simply be returned to storage for use at a later date.

Now that an embodiment of this invention has been described in detail, it will be apparent to those skilled in the relevant arts that numerous modifications and variations may be made without departing from the basic inventive concepts. For example, the container 10 has applicability other than for Communion services and the cup 12 and compartment 20 can hold substances other than juice and biscuits respectively. For example, the container 10 could be used for holding substances that are used together but must be held separate prior to use. For instance, the cup 12 could hold water and the compartment 20 hold a tablet. Depending on the nature of the tablet, it could either be placed in the mouth and the water held in the cup 12 used to assist in the swallowing of the tablet or alternately the tablet could be placed in the water in the cup 12 for dissolving and subsequent consumption. Alternately, the cup 12 and compartment 20 can hold chemicals which are required to be mixed in order to provide a beneficial effect when required to be used but must be held separately prior to that use such as for example a resin and a hardener.

While the container 10 depicted in the embodiments is provided with only two compartments, namely cup 12 and compartment 20, additional compartments can be -6formed by stacking successive seals on top of each other. For example, looking at Figure 1, an additional seal similar to seal 18 can be placed over and attached to seal 18 to form a further compartment between that additional seal and seal 18.

All such modifications and variations together with others that would be obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art are deemed to be within the scope of the present invention, the nature of which is to be determined from the above description and the appended claims.

Claims

1. A multi-compartment container comprising at least: a first compartment for containing a first substance, the first compartment having an opening through which the first substance can be dispensed; a first frangible seal for sealing said opening; and, a second frangible seal formed over and attached to the first seal, the first and second frangible seals defining therebetween a second compartment for containing a second substance; whereby, in use, said second compartment is opened to dispense the second substance by breaking the second seal and the first compartment can be opened by breaking the first seal to allow dispensing of the first substance through the opening.

2. A multi-compartment container according to claim 1 wherein each of said first and second seals is provided with a respective tab which can be manually gripped to facilitate individual breaking of each seal.

3. A multi-compartment container according to claim 2 wherein the first and second seals are arranged so that the force required to break the second seal is less than the force required to break the first seal so that pulling on the tab of the second seal causes opening of the second compartment in preference to opening of the first compartment. Dated this 28th day of March 2000 JOHN LAURENDI By Its Patent Attorneys GRIFFITH HACK Fellows Institute of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys of Australia.