GB1602258A

GB1602258A - Insulated drinking cups

Info

Publication number: GB1602258A
Application number: GB19969/78A
Authority: GB
Original assignee: GEN FOODS Ltd; General Foods Ltd
Current assignee: GEN FOODS Ltd; Mondelez UK Ltd
Priority date: 1978-05-16
Filing date: 1978-05-16
Publication date: 1981-11-11
Also published as: NO791615L; JPS54150277A; FI791535A; DK148173B; DK199179A; FI71476C; EP0005605B1; EP0005605A1; NO151277C; DK148173C; AU4697379A; CA1161404A; ES250507Y; DE2963222D1; NO151277B; FI71476B; AU528933B2; ES250507U; JPH0347843B2

Description

( 21) Application No 19969/78

( 11) ( 22) Filed 16 May 1978 44) Complete Specification published 11 Nov 1981 ( 51) INT CL 3 A 47 G 19/23 ( 52) Index at acceptance A 4 A IBI 1 B 2 1 B 4 A 1 B 7 A 1 B 7 X 1 C 1 2 B 6 D ( 54) IMPROVEMENTS IN OR RELATING TO INSULATED DRINKING CUPS ( 71) We, GENERAL FOODS LIMITED, a British Company, of Banbury, Oxon OX 16 7 QU, do hereby declare the invention, for which we pray that a patent may be granted to us, and the method by which it is to be performed, to be particularly

described in and by the following statement:

The present invention relates to nestable cups, particularly those cups from which hot beverages such as coffee are drunk, and to a stack of such cups, each cup containing one or more ingredients for a beverage.

It has long been known that single-walled cups do not present a very good thermal barrier to insulate the fingers of a person holding such a cup containing a hot beverage from the heat given out by that beverage.

Better heat insulation is obtained by using a so-called "double-walled" cup which is in fact two cups, one being inside the other, joined at their rims and having an air space between the outer wall of the inner cup and the inner wall of the outer cup This wall/air/wall barrier has proved effective in minimizing the amount of heat from a hot beverage inside the inner cup which will reach the fingers of a person holding the cup, thereby enabling the cup to be held without discomfort.

Such double-walled cups are, however, expensive to produce in that two singlewalled cups have to be made and then joined together Furthermore, a large part of the outer of the two cups is not alwaúys put to good use A cup can readily be held in the fingers without the fingers going below half-way down the wall of the cup, and indeed it is possible, although difficult, to hold a cup without the fingers going below about 10 mm from the rim of the cup.

British Patent Specification No 1,256,791 describes an exchangeable single-walled lining insertable into a re-usable, essentially rigid, cup-shaped body to support the lining and provide a drinking vessel The lining has an outwardly and downwardly turned collar which is an extension of the lining wall, the purpose of the collar being to define together with an adjacent wall part of the lining an annular groove for receiving, in use, the top edge of the body The lining also has a first inwardly extending annular shoulder on that wall part of the 55 lining which together with the collar defines the groove, and at least a second inwardly extending annular internal shoulder below the first shoulder, the sole purpose of these shoulders being to provide the lining with 60 sufficient rigidity for it not to depend like a bag in the body when it is filled, even if it is made from thin plastic material.

We have now devised a cup having a collar formed integrally therewith, which 65 cup may be of sufficiently rigidity for it to be used alone as a drinking vessel, the collar serving as a means for gripping the cup and making it significantaly more thermally effective than a double-walled cup, particu 70 larly when beverage at 95 W-1000 C is in the cup Furthermore, the cup can be made more easily, more quickly, and more cheaply than a double-walled cup of the same size and made of the same material 75 According to the present invention there is provided a nestable cup formed integrally of a thermoplastics material, having a base and an upstanding wall from the top rim of which there extends an outwardly and 80 downwardly turned collar which has a depth below said top edge of from 20 to 30 millimetres, the cup including an inwardly extending annular internal shoulder on the said wall, which shoulder is capable of sup 85 porting the base of a like cup and defining with the base of said like cup a space for one or more ingredients for a beverage.

The cup may be dimensioned such that when the cup is nesting in said like cup the 90 collar overlaps the collar of said like cup.

By "overlap" we mean that the collar of one cup is disposed with the annular groove defined by the wall and collar of one cup above it in a stack of the cups 95 Cups of the present invention can be made by thermoforming, injection moulding, and injection blow moulding techniques well-known to those skilled in the art.

However, although injection moulding and 100 PATENT SPECIFICATION

1 6022518 ( 19 1 602 258 injection blow moulding can be used when the collar is to taper towards the wall of the cup, only an initial taper is practicable with thermoforming A further advantage with the injection and injection blow moulding techniques is that vertical splines can be added to the collar to support it and impart rigidity to it Preferably, at least 3 vertical splines are added for this purpose.

These splines allow faster moulding speeds and generally give improved quality cups.

The depth of the splines on a cup however, is limited so as not to interfere with the cup below it in a stack of nesting cups.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention the collar has splines with depths of from 10 to 14 mm.

It is also possible using injection moulding to provide a nestable cup in which the collar will fit inside the cup below it in a stack of such cups.

With a thermoformed cup the collar can be made more rigid by providing ribs or grooves around it.

It will be appreciated that in a stack of cups of the present invention the clearance between the top edge of one collar and the top edge of the collar of the next cup is dictated solely by the height of the shoulder above the bottom edge of the cup.

Preferably this height is such as to give a volume of from 10 to 40 ml for the beverage ingredients Typically black tea and black coffee require a space of from 10 to 20 ml and chocolate 20 to 30 ml.

Although the cup of the present invention may be of sufficient strength to enable it to be used on its own to contain a beverage, it is possible, using the thermo-forming technique, to produce a much thinner cup by using a proportionately thinner sheet of material from which the thermoforming is made To enable such a cup to be a drinking vessel it is necessary to support it.

According to a further aspect of the present invention there is provided a drinking vessel comprising a cup of the present invention and a holder therefor, having an orifice portion adjacent its top edge, the collar of said cup defining together with an adjacent wall part of said cup an annular groove for receiving, in use, the orifice portion of said holder and for contacting at least the outside of the holder adjacent the top edge thereof, the cup depending substantially freely from said top edge into the interior of the holder.

The cup need have a wall thickness of no more than 10 thousandths of an inch 00 and the holder can be a relatively cheap printed paper sleeve which would be discarded along with the cup when the beverage had been consumed It is estimated that the cost of such a drinking vessel would be approximately equal to that of existing paper cups A corresponding self-supporting cup would need a wall thickness of from at least 15, and preferably 20 to 40, thousandths of an inch.

Whilst any thermoplastics material may 70 be used to form the cup, current commercially suitable materials include polystyrene, acrylonitrile/butadiene/styrene, and polypropylene resins, optionally filled with, for example, talc or chalk, for additional 75 strength The use of barrier resins or laminates/co-extrusions is preferred since they improve the shelf-life of beverage ingredients Because of its relatively low softening point polyvinyl chloride cannot be 80 used for cups from which very hot beverages are to be drunk, although it can be used in connection with warm beverages.

When the cups are stacked the top cup can be fitted with a plug or snap-on cap 85 to retain the beverage ingredients in the cup Alternatively, a "dummy" cup which does not contain any ingredients may be used A plug is to be preferred to a snap-on cap when the stack is wrapped since a plug 90 allows the enveloping film to be drawn into the top aperture region of a stack of cups and enables adequate top pressure to be obtained The wrapped stack should be under a top to bottom pressure sufficient to 95 prevent seepage of the beverage ingredients from the cups Preferred methods of wrapping ar described and claimed in our copending Application No 7707/75 (Serial No 1 539729) 100 The invention will be further described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a part-sectional side elevation of a typical cup of the present invention; 105 Figure 2 is an enlarged cross-sectional view of part of two cups of the type shown in Figure 1 in a nesting relationship:

Figure 3 is a side elevation of a preferred system for making a typical cup of the 110 present invention:

Figure 4 is a plan of the system shown in Figure 3 showing a batch of twelve cups being made simultaneously; Figure 5 is a side elevation of part of a 115 preferred cup of the present invention; and Figure 6 is an enlarged cross-sectional view of the tops of two cups of the tyne shown in Figure 5 in a nesting relationship.

In Figures 1 and 2 there is shown a cup 120 1 having integral therewith a collar 2 for gripping the cup There is an air gap 3 between the collar 2 and the wall 4 of the cup 1 It will be appreciated that thermal transfer by conduction from a beverage 125 within the cup to the part of the cup which is to be held is only possible via an elongated route from position AA', over and long the air gap to region BB' of the yoke.

The provision of ribs 5 are a way of giving 130 1 602258 the collar 2 an element of rigidity.

The cup 1 also has an inwardly extending annular internal shoulder 6 which as shown in Figure 2 supports a like cup in a nesting relationship The base 7 of the cup 1 has a dome-shaped portion 8 which gives additional strength to the cup 1 A space 9 (as shown in Figure 2) is defined when the base 7 of the upper of the two cups is supported 1 ') by the shoulder 6 of the lower cup This space will contain one or more ingredients, such as coffee powder, for a beverage when the cups are stacked.

It will be seen that use of the dimensions and angles shown results in their being proper nesting of the upper cup in the lower cup, and that there is no interference between the collars of the cups However, the invention is in no way limited to the use of these dimensions and angles and any dimensions and angles which result in there being proper nesting of the cups can be used.

In Figures 3 and 4 a sheet of thermoplastics material 10 is positioned under a heater 11 and radiant heat is applied to it.

This is shown in position A The sheet material 10 is then gripped at its edges, projected forward and positioned over water-cooled female mould 12 (position B).

A clamp 13 is then applied around the cavities of the mould 12 The position of the clamp 13 in relation to the mould 12 depends on whether material from an area of sheet larger than that of the mould aperture is required to make the forming The mould 12 is then moved upwards toward the sheet material 10 and during this operation air is blown from both inside and outside the mould 12 Air vents (not shown) are provided in the mould 12 for this purpose The air pressure forces the material into a position shown at C A heated mechanical punch (not shown) shaped to the interior of the mould 12 forces the material 10 down into the mould 12 where it adopts the shape of the interior of the mould Air is expelled from the mould through the air vents (not shown) therein.

If desired, the expulsion of air can be assisted by the use of vacuum exhaustion.

During a further stage D the forming 14 is cut from the sheet and the remaining part of the sheet 10 can be reprocessed.

The process described is an intermittent process and whilst one part of a sheet of material is being heated, another part is being thermoformed, and in another part formings are being cut from the sheet.

In Figures 5 and 6 the cups illustrated have a collar 11 formed integrally therewith, the upper part 12 of the collar 11 being parallel to the wall 13 of the cup The remaining part of the collar 11 tapers away from the wall 13 of the cup so as not to interfere with the collar of the cup immediately underneath it in a stack of the cups and thereby prevent proper nesting of the cups It will be seen that although the collars of adjacent cups are close together 70 there is in fact no contact between them, although such contact would be acceptable provided it does not prevent proper meeting of the cups The collar 11 has ribbing 15 to provide it with additional rigidity /5 In an alternative embodiment the lower part of the collar can descend vertically.

This not only reduces the distance between the collar and the wall but also allows for an economy in sheet area of material 80 Further advantages of the cups of the present invention are that they have a lip which offers an improved drinking surface, and that there is no need when making the cups to roll the rim, which is normally an 85 additional operation in the thermoforming of conventional cups.

Claims

WHAT WE CLAIM IS:

1 A nestable cup formed integrally of 90 a thermoplastics material, having a base and an upstanding wall from the top rim of which there extends an outwardly and downwardly turned collar which has a depth below said top edge of from 20 to 30 milli 95 metres the cup including an inwardly extending annular internal shoulder on the said wall, which shoulder is capable of supporting the base of a like cup and defining with the base of said like cup a space for 100 one or more ingredients for a beverage.

2 A cup as claimed in claim 1 and dimensioned such that when the cup is nesting in said like cup the collar overlaps the collar of said like cup 105 3 A cup as claimed in claim 2 in which an upper part of said collar is parallel with the wall of the cup.

4 A cup as claimed in claim 2 in which an upper part of said collar is parallel with 110 the wall of the cup and a lower part of said collar tapers away from the said wall.

A cup as claimed in any one of the preceding claims in which the space for beverage ingredients is from 10 to 40 m 1 115 6 A thermoformed cup as claimed in any foregoing claim in which the collar is ribbed for additional rigidity.

7 An injection moulded or injection blow moulded cup as claimed in any of 120 claims 1 to 5 in which the collar is provided with at least 3 vertical splines for additional rigidity.

8 A cup as claimed in claim 1 substantially as hereinbefore described with refer 125 ence to and as illustrated in Figures 1 and 2 or 5 and 6 of the accompanying drawings.

9 A method of making a cup as claimed in claim 1 substantially as hereinbefore described 130 1 602 258 A cup which has been made by a method as claimed in claim 12.

11 A drinking vessel comprising a cup as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 10 and a holder therefor, having an orifice portion adjacent its top edge, the collar of said cup defining together with an adjacent wall part of said cup an annular groove for receiving, in use, the orifice portion of said holder and for contacting at least the outside of the holder adjacent the top edge thereof, the cup depending substantially freely from said top edge into the interior of the holder.

12 A stack of cups as claimed in any one of the claims 1 to 10, each cup containing one or more ingredients for a beverage.

13 A stack of cups as claimed in claim 12 in which the top cup is fitted with a plug 20 or snap-on cap.

14 A stack of cups as claimed in claim 12 together with a top cup which does not contain any ingredients for the beverage.

A stack of cups as claimed in any 25 one of claims 12 to 15 in which the beverage ingredients are for making coffee, tea, or a chocolate, beef, chicken, lemon, or orange flavoured drink.

16 A stack of cups as claimed in any 30 one of claims 12 to 15 which is wrapped and which is under a top to bottom pressure sufficient to prevent seepage of the beverage ingredients from the cups.

BOULT, WADE & TENNANT Chartered Patent Agents 27 Fumival Street, London EC 4 A 1 PO Printed for Her Majesty's Stationery Office by The Tweeddale Press Ltd Berwick-upon-Tweed 1981.

Published at the Patent Office 25 Southampton Buildings, London, WC 2 A IAY from which copies may be obtained.