GB2125766A

GB2125766A - An adhesive label

Info

Publication number: GB2125766A
Application number: GB08319472A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Peter H Seckel
Original assignee: Dart Industries Inc
Current assignee: Dart Industries Inc
Priority date: 1982-08-19
Filing date: 1983-07-19
Publication date: 1984-03-14
Also published as: BE895834A; IT8321233A0; DE3307300C2; GB8319472D0; NL8300977A; FR2532094B1; JPS5934586A; DE3307300A1; IT1175918B; FR2532094A1

Abstract

An adhesive label for displaying characters formed by a marker e.g. a ball point pen, comprising: a material 4 having an upper surface and a lower surface; a traceway 3 defining a matrix 2 on said upper surface, which traceway accepts said marker to deposit a marking substance substantially exclusively within said traceway, whereby characters can be formed by moving said marker along portions of said traceway; and a layer of adhesive on said lower surface. The material 4 may be a plastics material and the traceway is formed as a groove in said material. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Improvements in or relating to an adhesive label This invention relates to an adhesive label.

Adhesive labels have become very popular, and are used in a wide variety of applications. Several types of adhesive label are available, including stress-whitened machine-embossed plastics strips, such as sold in the United States under the name "Dymo", preprinted or preshaped letters which may be arranged one by one to construct a message, handprinted messages, and machine printed messages. Such prior art adhesive labels suffer from a variety of disadvantages. Machine-embossed labels must be formed one letter at a time, the characters being limited to the colour white, and an embossing machine must be available. In addition, the adhesive of such labels is embossed along with the characters, limiting the amount of adhesive surface available. Use of preprinted or preshaped letters requires maintenance of an adequate stock of all characters which might be used.Hand printed messages are often illegible, and are generally not machinereadable. Machine printed messages require the presence of a suitable machine, or use of preprinted labels with unalterable messages.

What has been needed, but now shown or suggested by the prior art, is an adhesive label which can be prepared quickly, easily, and inexpensively at a job site without the necessity for complex equipment or a large stock of characters, which is non-erasable, and which is legible to by both people and machines.

The present invention provides an adhesive label for displaying characters formed by a marker, comprising: a material having an upper surface and a lower surface; a traceway defining a matrix on said upper surface, which traceway accepts said marker to deposit a marking substance substantially exclusively within said traceway, whereby characters can be formed by moving said marker along portions of said traceway; and a layer of adhesive on said lower surface.

Preferably said matrix comprises a generally quadrilateral peripheral traceway having generally straight traceway portions connecting alternate corners of said peripheral traceway and having generally straight traceway portions connecting midpoints of opposite sides of said peripheral traceway.

Said peripheral traceway may be shaped as a parallelogram, for example as a rhombus, or may have any desired shape.

Said traceway may be formed as a depressed groove in said material upper surface. Alternatively, the traceway may be formed as a groove bounded by raised ridges in said material upper surface.

Preferably, said traceway is shaped to accept said marker such that said marker contacts and marks substantially the whole of the cross-section of said traceway.

The marking substance may suitably be an ink.

Desirably, said traceway has a cross-section in the form of the arc of a circle, and accepts the ball-point of a ball-point pen such that said ball-point may contact and may mark substantially the whole of the cross-section of said traceway.

In a further aspect, the invention provides a combination of an adhesive label and an ink marker, wherein said adhesive label comprises: a material, capable of bonding with ink, having an upper surface and a lower surface; a traceway defining a matrix on said upper surface, which traceway accepts said ink marker to deposit ink substantially exclusively within said traceway, whereby characters can be formed by tracing with said ink marker along portions of said traceway; and a layer of adhesive on said lower surface.

In a still further aspect, the invention provides an adhesive label comprising: a material capable of bonding with ink, having an upper surface and a lower surface; a traceway defining a matrix on said upper surface, said traceway having ink-bearing portions and ink-free portions whereby said inkbearing portions define a character; and a layer of adhesive on said lower surface.

In order that the invention may be more readily understood, and so that further features thereof may be appreciated, an embodiment of the invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a perspective view of one embodiment of an adhesive label of the invention, showing a series of matrices; Figure 2 is a detailed plan view of a part of the label of Figure 1; Figure 3 illustrates a sample of alpha numerical characters generated with a matrix as illustrated in Figures 1 and 2; Figure 4 is a partial perspective view of another embodiment of the invention; Figure 5 is a cross-sectional view of one matrix of Figure 2 viewed along the line 5-5 of Figure 2; Figure 6 is a cross-sectional view of the matrix shown in Figure 4 viewed along line 6-6 of Figure 4; and Figure 7 is an enlarged cross-sectional view of a part of Figure 5, and also shows in cross-section the tip of a ball-point pen in a traceway.

Figure 1 shows an adhesive label 1 comprising a first layer of material 4 bearing a series of matrices 2, and a second layer of adhesive 5. Each matrix 2 comprises a network of grooved traceways 3. As illustrated, the adhesive label 1 can be in the form of a strip bearing a series of matrices 2, as shown in Figure 1, or alternatively adhesive label 1 may be in any other convenient form, such as a sheet bearing several series of matrices 2 in linear or other configurations. It will be appreciated that the adhesive label 1 can take a variety of forms depending upon a desired application.

Figure 2 shows a detailed plan view of a portion of adhesive label 1' having two matrices 2'. The matrices 2' comprise peripheral grooved traceways 3' defining a generally rhomboidal configuration and include generally straight traceways 3' between alternate corners of the configuration and generally straight traceways 3' between the midpoints of opposite sides of the configuration. Although the matrices 2' are shown as parallelograms, the mat rices 2' can be in any desired configuration, depending upon the characters intended to be displayed on the label.

Selected ones, or portions, ofthetraceways 3' can be used in cooperation to define a desired letter, number or other figure, for example an upper and a lower portion and one side of the peripheral traceway 3' combine to define the letter "C".

Referring to Figure 1, a desired letter, number, or other figure is formed by guiding a suitable marker along appropriate traceways 3 of the matrix 2. By so marking successive matrices, words can be spelled out or a series of letters or numbers can be placed on the label 1. The result is clearly illustrated in Figure 3, which shows a label 1" to which ink has been applied to portions of the matrices 2". The resultant label has ink-bearing portions and ink-free portions, the ink-bearing portions spelling out the word "MATRIX". The ink resides substantially exclusively within the traceways.

The traceways 3 of label 1 can be either grooves formed as depressions in the material 4, or grooves formed between raised ridges in the material 4. The matrices 2' of Figure 2 comprise traceways 3' which are depressed grooves in the material 4'.

Figure 5 illustrates a section through the matrix 2' of Figure 2 and shows clearly the traceways 3', formed as a series of grooves in the material 4' to form the matrix 2' above a layer of adhesive 5'.

The traceways 3 may alteratively be formed as grooves bounded by raised ridges, for example as shown in Figure 4 and 6 wherein a portion of a label 1* having a matrix 2* comprises traceways 3* formed between raised ridges 6* of the material 4*.

A layer of adhesive material 5* lies beneath the material 4*.

The traceways perform three important functions: a) They provide guides for a marking pen enabling the formation of characters of consistent size and shape; b) they accept the ink from a marking pen in such a manner that the ink is disposed in the traceways to form lines of substantially uniform width and shading; and c) they protect the ink from removal or accidental erasure by disposing substantially all of the ink on or in the traceway below an upper surface plane of the tape.

To enable the traceway to accept ink in such a mannerthatthe ink is disposed to form lines of substantially uniform width and shading critical limitations are placed on the size and cross-sectional configuration of the traceways.

The cross-sectional size and configuration of the traceways should be generally uniform along sub stantiallythe entire length of the traceways and should substantially conform to the cross-sectional size and configuration of the tip of a suitable marking pen. Figure 7 illustrates the preferred relationship of a suitable marking pen, e.g. a ball-point pen, within a traceway. Figure 7 shows the ball 7 of a ball-point pen 8 disposed in a traceway 3', formed as a groove in material 4' that overlies adhesive 5'. The depth of the traceway should be from about 10% to about 45% of the diameter of the ball 7 of the pen, and is preferably about 30% of the diameter of the ball. If the traceway is made too shallow, it will not accept an amount of ink necessary to form a satisfactorily wide line.In addition, the traceway will not accept a satisfactory portion of the pen, and the pen may have a tendency to slip out of the traceway during marking. lfthetraceway is made too deep, the lower edge 9 of the ball point pen may have a tendency to contact the material 4', making use of the marking pen tedious.

In cross-section, the configuration of the traceway is preferably the arc of a circle. The diameter of the circle defining the traceway arc should be slightly larger than the diameter of the ball of the ball-point marking pen. The optimum tracewaywidth is such that the ball 7 can contact simultaneously all points along the arc between opposite traceway shoulders 10 and 11. The ball should be able to roll freely as the pen is moved along the length of the traceway, contacting substantially the ensire inner surface of the traceway. As the pen is moved along the traceway, ink flows from the ink tube reservoir 12 to the ball 7 which carries the ink to the traceway 3' where it is deposited.

Although it is preferred that the marker be a ball-point pen, other markers can also be used satisfactorily. For example, markers with fixed, porous tips can be used. However, for satisfactory operation, the traceway cross-section must correspond in size and configuration with the marker tip, as explained above, so that the tip simultaneously contacts substantially all points on the traceway along a cross-section of the traceway.

In forming the traceways, the deformability of the material should be considered. For instances in which traceways are formed in material which has limited deformability, as for example a plasticized vinyl, the traceways should be formed to conform to the marking pen to be used. If a highly deformable material is used, for example a foamed material, the traceways should be formed such that upon introduction of the marking pen into the traceways at the desired marking pressure the traceways deform to conform to the marking pen.

Matrices can be made with traceways of any convenient or desirabie width. Since the width of the traceway in the preferred embodiment define the width of the line produced upon marking, it is a simple matter to determine the necessitytraceway width to produce a line of a desired width.

The material 4 is preferably a material which accepts ink to form a bond such that the ink cannot easily be removed from the material. The bond can be formed by adsorption, absorption, or some other strong physical or chemical interaction. A preferred material is an opaque, flexible, plasticized vinyl polymer. Such vinyl polymers can be prepared from a vinyl chloride copolymer or form a polyvinylchloride homopolymer, by conventional means. Any known plasticizers can be used, including phthalates, adipates, azelates, polyesters, phosphates, and epoxidized oils. Generally such vinyl polymers are stabilized with well-known stabilizers such as barium-cadmium, lead, tin, or calcium-zinc compounds. Also commonly included are fillers such as talc, clay, barium sulfate, and other inert inorganic materials, and pigments such as titanium dioxide.

Suitable materials will be generally characterized in that they can be manufactured easily with traceways of the desired size, and that they will accept ink within the traceways to form lines of consistent width and darkness.

The preferred inks for use with plasticized vinyl polymer are solutions of synthetic organic dyes with dispersed pigments. The pigments are usually organic, although in many inks a finely dispersed inorganic pigment is also used. In general, the most preferred inks comprise about 20% colorant, 20% binder, and 60% solvent. It is also preferred that the ink have a viscosity of above about 10,000 cps at 25"C., and a surface tension of above about 30 dynes/cm. It is believed that there are many ink material combinations which will perform satisfactorily in the practice of this invention.

It is believed that the most suitable inks will be those containing solvents which carry the ink pigments into the material and which then evaporate, leaving the pigments absorbed into the material. As the solvent evaporates, the migration of the pigments into the material diminishes. In instances in which inks are used containing dyes which are soluble in plasticizer, the amount of the vinyl plasticizer should be controlled to avoid undue migration of the dye into the vinyl.

Suitable combinations of ink and material can be readily determined with minimal effort and without undue experimentation.

Any convenient adhesive which can be applied to the material 4 and which can adhere material 4 to an object to which the label 1 is to be applied may be used. The preferred adhesive is one which can be applied to the material 4 as a liquid or plastic, and that can be covered with a protective coating of paper, plastics, or some other film which can be peeled off the adhesive 5 immediately prior to applying the label 1 to an object. The adhesive 5 must be of such a substance which bonds less strongly to the protective coating than it does to the material 4, so that the protective coating can be easily released from the adhesive 5.The protective coating is preferably an inexpensive material which is durable enough to resist tearing, puncturing or other breakage during transportation and preparations of the label 1 for use, and which can be easily peeled from the adhesive 5 in a single piece.

Especially suitable as a protective coating is a paper treated with a release agent such as wax. Other suitable adhesives include magnetic strips and "Velcro" materials.

The traceways 3 can be formed on the material 4 by any convenient means, for example by stamping depressions in the surface of the material 4 to form depressed traceways 3, with or without adjacent raised ridges. An alternative method of forming traceways 3 is by embossing the traceways 3 onto the material 4 to form ridges bounding traceways 3 on one face of the material 4 and depressions on the reverse face of the material 4 corresponding to the ridges. Another method of forming traceways 3 is to contact the material 4 with a hot engraved roller. The main requirement of any method used is that the traceways 3 be accurately formed.

The adhesive Scan be applied to the material either before or after the formation of the traceways 3. To ensure correct distributon of adhesive, it is preferable to apply the adhesive 5 after the traceways 3 have been formed.

Since the matrices can be made in any configuration, a machine-readable label can be made by selecting a matrix configuration which, when appropriately marked, can be read by machine.

From the foregoing, it is evident that the adhesive label of this invention has many qualities which distinguish it from conventional labels. The labels of this invention are conveniently made by any of several processes. They can be made in multiple colours by co-extruding materials of different colours to yield a multi-coloured extrudate, and then forming the matrices in the multi-coloured extrudate to form a multi-coloured tape. Similarly, a variety of forms of tape can be made. The tape can be made in flat sheets or long strips for roll storage. The tape can be formed with bevelled or raised edges for emphasis, for example, or with a texture finish. Inks of any colour can be used, and inks of different colours can be used to mark any one tape. The characters, once made in the matrix with ink, are abrasion-resistant since the ink resides within the traceways. The matrices can be made in any desirable configuration, for the formation of letters, numbers, symbols, or other characters. Commonly available ball-point pens can be used with tapes of a suitable material having the appropriate traceway size.

Claims

1. An adhesive label for displaying characters formed by a marker, comprising: a material having an upper surface and a lower surface; a traceway defining a matrix on said upper surface, which traceway accepts said marker to deposit a marking substance substantially exclusively within said traceway, whereby characters can be formed by moving said marker along portions of said traceway; and a layer of adhesive on said lower surface.

2. An adhesive label according to claim 1,wherein said matrix comprises a generally quadrilateral peripheral traceway having generally straight traceway portions connecting alternate corners of said peripheral traceway and having generally straight traceway portions connecting the midpoints of opposite sides of said peripheral traceway.

3. An adhesive label according to claim 1 or claim 2, wherein said traceway has a generally uniform cross-section.

4. An adhesive label according to claim 1, claim 2 or claim 3, wherein said traceway is formed as a depressed groove in said material upper surface.

5. An adhesive label according to any one of claims 1, 2,3 or 4, wherein said traceway is formed as a groove bounded by raised ridges in said material upper surface.

7. An adhesive label according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein said material comprises a plastics material.

8. An adhesive label according to claim 7, wherein said material comprises a vinyl polymer.

9. An adhesive label according to any one of claims 1 to 8, wherein said traceway accepts said marker such that said marker contacts and marks substantially the whole of the cross-section of said traceway.

10. An adhesive label according to any one of claims 1 to 9, wherein said marking substance is an ink.

11. An adhesive label according to any one of claims 1 to 10, wherein said traceway has a crosssection in the form of the arc of a circle, and wherein said traceway accepts the ball-point of a ball-point pen such that said ball-point may contact and may mark substantially the whole of the cross-section of said traceway.

12. The combination of an adhesive label and an ink marker, wherein said adhesive label comprises: a material, capable of bonding with ink, having an upper surface and a lower surface; a traceway defining a matrix on said upper surface, which traceway accepts said ink marker to deposit ink substantially exclusively within said traceway, whereby characters can be formed by tracing with said ink marker along portions of said traceway; and a layer of adhesive on said lower surface.

13. A combination according to claim 12, wherein said adhesive label is constructed in accordance with any one of claims 2 to 11.

14. An adhesive label comprising: a material capable of bonding with ink, having an upper surface and a lower surface; a traceway defining a matrix on said upper surface, said traceway having ink-bearing portions and ink-free portions whereby said inkbearing portions define a character; and a layer of adhesive on said lower surface.

15. The adhesive label of claim 14, constructed in accordance with any one of claims 2 to 11.

16. An adhesive label substantially as herein described with reference to, and as shown in, Figures 1,2,3,5 and 7 of the accompanying drawings.

17. An adhesive label substantially as herein described with reference to, and as shown in, Figures 1,2,3,4 and 6 of the accompanying drawings.

18. Any novel feature or novel combination of features described herein.