GB2346609A

GB2346609A - Hanging pouch bag with strip piece for closure means

Info

Publication number: GB2346609A
Application number: GB9903399A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Trevor Bernard Nigel Henson
Original assignee: Learoyd Packaging Ltd
Current assignee: Learoyd Packaging Ltd
Priority date: 1999-02-15
Filing date: 1999-02-15
Publication date: 2000-08-16
Also published as: GB9903399D0

Abstract

A hanging bag comprises a front panel 10 and a back panel 12, together forming a pouch 1 in which the back panel extends above the front panel to form a header region 14, the bag also having a hanger 4 for hanging the bag which is bonded to the header region 14, and a strip piece joined to the header region below the attachment position of the hanger to form a flap 2, which is capable of closing the bag. The bag may be made from plastics material. The front and back panels may be formed from a single piece of material with a fold 8 at the bottom of the bag, or the panels may be welded together and the strip piece welded to the header region. The panels may be treated to accept ink or adhesive on their outer surfaces and may be printed thereon. The header region may be flexible. The strip piece or the front panel may be coated with adhesive, which may be covered with a release tape. The strip piece may extend across the whole width of the bag and may also be treated to receive adhesive; it may also be configured to be naturally directed towards the bottom of the bag or it may do so by means of a crease. The hanger may be a hook, which can be made of rigid material welded to the header region. A method for forming such a hanging bag is also disclosed.

Description

HANGING BAG The present invention relates to hanging bags for holding goods and in particular to ensuring that they are convenient to use, are strong and are likely to remain aesthetically leasing even when holding bulky goods.

Hanging bags are generally used for display purposes, for example in shops.

They are intended for holding individual items such as garments or sets of items and can be hung on a rail. They can be moved along the rail in a similar manner to, for example, coat hangers, but they have the additional advantage of protecting the items from soiling.

Such bags are generally formed from plastics material as a pouch having a front piece and a back piece with an opening into which the goods can be placed.

They are also generally provided with a flap for closing the pouch. Either the front piece or the flap is coated with a strip of adhesive which is covered with a protective strip. In use, the bag is filled, then the protective strip is removed and the flap is closed down onto the front piece, thus closing the pouch. The opening into the pouch can be at the top, at one side or at the bottom.

Furthermore, a hanging bag has a means by which it can be hung. This can either be a hole near the top of the bag (a"Euroslot") or a hanger attached to the bag, for instance a fairly rigid plastic hanger in the form of a hook which is welded on near the top of the bag. Furthermore, such a bag can be formed to have an additional small pouch into which manufacturer's card can be put, for example carrying the size or description of the product. It is usual for the outer faces of a hanging bag to be treated, for example by corona discharge, to make it suitable for receiving ink, so that it may be printed.

There are a number of different styles of hanging bag having different combinations of features on the market at present. Several will be described below : A first common style of hanging bag is one in which the pouch is formed from a single piece of material, which is folded at the bottom of the bag and welded down the sides of the bag, such that the opening is at the top of the pouch. The back piece is longer than the front piece, extends upwards beyond the top of the pouch and is then folded downwards to form a flap. The hanger is a hook welded onto the rear face of the back piece below the fold and a short distance above the top of the pouch. The adhesive and protective strip are put on the front face. In use, the goods are put in the bag, the protective strip is removed and the flap is folded forwards to close on the adhesive. It is intended that the flap should be folded just the right amount that it covers the adhesive but does not deflect the alignment of the hook, so that when the hook is put on a rail, the bag hangs vertically. There are several problems with this type of bag. Firstly, if the strip is folded too far over, either because the user judges it incorrectly or because the bag is slightly overfilled, the bag material will be wrinkled and the hook will be pulled over and consequently the bag will not hang vertically. This is unsightly in a shop and might discourage customers. Also, the hook is only welded onto a single thickness of material, which means the bag is susceptible to tearing around the hook area. Putting the adhesive onto the front face of the bag is not ideal because when bags are being packed industrially it is quicker for a packer to remove the protective strip and seal the bag if the adhesive and the protective strip are on the flap.

A second common style of hanging bag comprises a pouch formed in a similar way to that of the first style, but turned upside-down relative to the first style such that the hook is welded at the fold between the front and back pieces and as a result the pouch opens at the bottom. It is common for the adhesive to be put on the flap of this style of bag. This overcomes some of the problems associated with the first style. Firstly the hook and the material of the bag surrounding it are less likely to tear because the hook is welded on a double thickness of material.

Secondly, even if the flap is not sealed in exactly the correct location, whilst that would still result in material wrinkling, the flap is at the opposite end of the bag from the hook so it would not affect the vertical hanging of the bag, so the appearance would be less off-putting to customers. Thirdly, the adhesive being situated on the flap rather than the bag allows marginally quicker sealing.

However, this style has its own problem associated with the opening being at the bottom. Firstly, the weight of the goods inside the pouch is on the seal, which could result in failure of the seal. Secondly, this is exacerbated if the pouch is opened and re-sealed several times, as is likely to happen in a shop when customers inspect the bag's contents, because the seal weakens as will be described below. This can mean that goods fall out of the bag, at which point the retailer must either discard them as spoiled or at best charge less for them.

A third common style of hanging bag is similar to the second style with the pouch opening at the bottom. Instead of having a hook welded on the double thickness of material at the top, a Euroslot is formed in this area and the front and back pieces are welded together a little way below it, forming an additional pouch into which a manufacturer's card can be inserted. Such a bag suffers from the same problems as the second style by virtue of the pouch opening at the bottom.

Furthermore, the Euroslot is not particularly strong so there is likely to be tearing around it. This bag does however overcome the same problems of the first style as does the second style.

A further problem associated with all these types of hanging bag, as mentioned in respect of the second style, is that after the bag has been opened and re-sealed several times, its ability to stick becomes impaired. This is partly worsened if the adhesive being initially put on a non-corona-treated surface which is later folded over to stick to a treated surface when the bag is closed. The adhesive bonds preferentially firstly to the first surface which it comes into contact with, that is the non-treated surface which it is put onto during manufacture of the bag, but secondly it bonds to a treated surface in preference to a non-treated surface.

This means that since the first surface is a non-treated surface which is being bonded to a treated surface, there is likely to be transfer of glue between the two surfaces, which means that after the bag has been opened and re-sealed several times, the effectiveness of the adhesive is reduced.

It would be desirable to provide a hanging bag which at least partly mitigates the drawbacks of the prior art.

According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a hanging bag comprising: a front piece and a back piece, together forming a pouch having an opening at the top of the front piece, the back piece extending above the front piece to form a header region; a hanger for hanging the bag, which is bonded to the header region; and a strip piece joined to the header region below the attachment position of the hook, and being capable of adhesion to the front piece for closing the pouch.

Preferably the header portion is formed from a double thickness of material and/or is flexible in the region between the hanger and the strip piece. Alternatively, the header region could be formed form a single thickness of material.

Suitably the front piece and the back piece are welded or otherwise joined together to form the pouch and preferably the strip piece is welded onto the header region, for example by heat welding. Conveniently the front piece and the back piece are formed from a single piece of material folded at the bottom of the bag.

At least one of the strip piece and the front sheet may be coated with adhesive such that it is possible to thereby adhere the strip piece to the front sheet.

Furthermore, the at least one of the strip piece or the front piece which are coated with adhesive, may be at least partially covered by a removable strip capable of being removed to allow adhesion of the strip piece to the front piece. Preferably the strip piece extends across substantially the whole width of the opening.

The outer surfaces of the front piece and the back piece may be treated to accept ink and/or adhesive and they may be printed.

Preferably the strip piece is attached such that its treated surface is the surface intended for adhesion to the front piece. Suitably it is configured such that it is naturally directed downwards, conveniently by means of a crease.

Preferably the hanger is a hook and the hook is rigid. Preferably the hook is welded onto the header.

Suitably the hanging bag is formed from plastics material.

According to a second aspect of the invention there is provided a method of forming a hanging bag, comprising the steps of: forming a pouch having a front piece and a back piece and an opening at the top of the front piece, such that the back piece extends above the front piece to form a header region; bonding a hanger for hanging the bag to the header region; and joining a strip piece to the header region below the attachment position of the hook, for use as a flap for closing the bag.

Preferably prior to the formation of the pouch the strip piece is formed by cutting from one of the front piece or the back piece, and the strip piece is then turned relative to the front piece and/or the back piece such that a treated side of the strip is joined in an orientation in which it faces in the same direction as the front piece. Conveniently the strip piece is creased such that it naturally lies in an orientation in which the treated side faces in the opposite direction as the front piece.

The present invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 shows a hanging bag in accordance with the present invention.

Figure 2 shows a cross-section of a hanging bag in accordance with the present invention before the crease is made in the flap, viewed along the line A-A of Figure 1.

Figure 3 is a cross-section of a hanging bag in accordance with the present invention ready for use.

Figure 4 is a front view of the bag of Figure 3 after the pouch has been sealed closed with the flap.

In the figures, like reference numerals indicate like parts.

Figure 1 shows a hanging bag having a main pouch indicated generally by 1, a flap 2 for closing the opening 3 and a hook 4 for hanging the bag from a rail or suchlike. It is shown in the open position at a point during manufacture after the flap 2 has been welded on along header weld 6. In use, the flap is folded down to close the couch 1. as will be described in more detail below. The baa is formed

from tfolvthene/or DolvDroDvlene sheet. The semi-riaid hook is formed from

~ ~ ~ ~. ~ ~ plastics material which could also be Solythent The bag is manufactured from a single layer of sheet, which has been pre-treated on one of its two surfaces. This treating involves passing the sheet through a treatment box which contains a ceramic roller and an electrode. The sheet passes between the roller and the electrode whilst a high voltage is applied to the electrode. This voltage earths on the sheet and consequently oxidises the molecules near the top of the surface, forming molecular"pits"on the surface.

This process is known as Ucorona discharge"treating. Ink molecules or adhesive molecules are more likely to stick to a treated surface than a non-treated surface because they can lock into the pitted surface.

If a surface pattern is required on the bag, it is printed at this stage.

In order to form the bag, the sheet is fed treated side upwards whilst a blade cuts off a strip from the sheet, along the direction of feeding, which will later form the flap for closing the bag. The remaining part of the sheet is passed over an Aframe which folds it into two pieces, that fold 8 forming the bottom of the bag and the two pieces being the front piece 10 and the back piece 12. The fold is located so that the back piece extends beyond the front piece at the open end 3 of the pouch. At this stage, the sheet has not been formed into individual bags, but rather it is a continuous folded web, which will be separated into individual bags further on in the process. The web is fed in a direction parallel to the bottom fold 8. In the next few paragraphs, the parts of the bag will however be referred to in accordance with the reference numerals in the figures.

The next stage is to fold the extension of back piece 12 downwards towards the opening 3 of the pouch, thus forming a double thickness header portion 14. The strip which was cut off is fed by a series of rollers such that it is twisted before being guided into position above the header portion 14. The twisting is an important step of the process, because it results in the strip being fed above the header portion with its treated side facing upwards, like the front sheet of the bag.

Next, a triple header weld 6 is made, meaning three layers of material are welded together, namely the two thicknesses of the back piece 12, which form the header portion 14, and the strip. This means that the header portion 14 is now sealed to keep the two thicknesses in place and the strip is welded at its lower edge, thus forming the flap 2. It lies naturally over the header portion 14 at this stage as shown in figure 2.

The next step is to weld the hook 4 near the top of the header portion 14 of each nascent bag. It is welded underneath i. e. on the opposite side of the bag to the opening 3 of the pouch 1, as can be more clearly seen in the cross-sectional view in Figure 2. The hook is welded to both layers of the header portion. It is made of a lightweight plastics material which is rigid enough to withstand the weight of a loaded hanging bag but nevertheless flexible enough to withstand shocks. Then, a strip of adhesive is applied to the upper treated surface 16 of the flap 2, followed by a removable protective strip. This protective strip protects the adhesive from sticking to anything accidentally, which is particularly useful when the bag is being filled.

The penultimate step is to fold the flap 2 through approximately 180 towards the opening 3 of the pouch and to crease it in this position along a line just slightly above the triple weld 6 by pinching between rollers. The crease formed is indicted by reference numeral 18 in Figure 3. This means that the flap 2 now lies naturally over the opening 3 of the pouch, whilst still being easily manoeuvrable for inserting goods into the bag.

Finally, the web is cut into individual bags with a hot blade which welds down either side of each bag as it cuts. This results in the front piece and the back piece being welded together along the two sides adjacent to the fold 8, thus forming the pouch 1. These welds are indicated by reference numeral 20 in Figure 1.

In use, the flap 2 is lifted up and goods put into the bag. Then the removable strip is removed and the flap pressed down onto the upper surface of the front piece 10 of the bag, thus closing the pouch 1. A front view of the bag in this closed position is shown in Figure 4, in which the adhesive strip is indicated by reference numeral 22 directed at the area enclosed by the dot-dash lines.

This embodiment of the invention has a number of advantages. Firstly, the twisting of the strip for forming the flap 2 results in the adhesive being applied to the treated side of the material. When the bag is sealed, the flap sticks to the upper surface of the front piece 10, which is also treated. Therefore, the affinity of the adhesive to the two surfaces is more similar than if one surface were treated and the other not, as is the case in the described prior art hanging bags.

This results in less propensity for adhesive transfer between the two surfaces, which means the seal is more resilient to repeated opening and re-sealing.

Secondly the triple weld 6 results in the flap 2 naturally tending to lie with its treated surface upwards as indicated in Figures 1 and 2. This means it is easy to apply the adhesive and the protective strip without having to hold the flap 2 in place.

Thirdly the subsequent creasing downwards of the flap 2 means that the flap is naturally held in exactly the correct position for sealing when in use. This means that it is not left to user judgement to decide the exact position at which to place the flap. At the same time, it is nevertheless easy to lift the flap for inserting goods into the pouch.

Fourthly, there are two advantages related to hanging the sealed bag, for example on a rail. The double thickness header 14 to which the hook 4 is welded is twice as strong as it would be if the hook were only welded to a single thickness of material as is the case in several hanging bags of the prior art. This means the bag is less likely to tear around the area of the hook. Furthermore, since the flap is welded below the attachment point of the hook, any imperfect sealing of the flap, which could conceivably still result from filling the bag with bulky goods even though the flap lies in the correct place, will not affect the vertical hanging capability of the bag. Additionally, a manufacturer's card could be inserted within the header portion during manufacture.

The bag is also convenient because the opening 3 of the pouch 1 is situated at the top of the bag rather than the bottom, so the weight of the goods is not held by the seal. Since the adhesive is situated on the flap rather than the bag, sealing of the bag can be performed as efficiently as possible.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that a number of similar embodiments could be envisaged. For example, the double thickness header portion and the flap could all be formed by folding the back piece of the bag, rather than using a separate strip for the flap. Such a bag would provide most of the advantages of the described embodiment apart from the advantage of putting the adhesive strip on a treated surface.

The applicant draws attention to the fact that the present invention may include any feature or combination of features disclosed herein either implicitly or explicitly or any generalisation thereof, without limitation to the scope of any of the present claims. In view of the foregoing description it will be evident to a person skilled in the art that various modifications may be made within the scope of the invention.

Claims

CLAIMS 1. A hanging bag : a front piece and a back piece, together forming a pouch having an opening at the top of the front piece, the back piece extending above the front piece to form a header region; a hanger for hanging the bag, which is bonded to the header region; and a strip piece joined to the header region below the attachment position of the hook, and being capable of adhesion to the front piece for closing the pouch.
2. A hanging bag according to claim 1, wherein the header portion is formed from a double thickness of material.
3. A hanging bag according to claim 1 or claim 2, wherein the header portion is flexible in the region between the hanger and the strip piece.
4. A hanging bag according to any preceding claim, wherein the front piece and the back piece are welded together to form the pouch and the strip piece is welded onto the header region.
5. A hanging bag according to any preceding claim, wherein the front piece and the back piece are formed from a single piece of material folded at the bottom of the bag.
6. A hanging bag according to any preceding claim, wherein at least one of the strip piece and the front sheet is coated with adhesive such that it is possible to thereby adhere the strip piece to the front sheet.
7. A hanging bag according to any preceding claim, wherein at least one of the strip piece or the front piece are coated with adhesive, which is at least partially covered by a removable strip capable of being removed to allow adhesion of the strip piece to the front piece.
8. A hanging bag according to any preceding claim, wherein the strip piece extends across substantially the whole width of the opening.
9. A hanging bag according to any preceding claim, wherein the outer surfaces of the front piece and the back piece are treated to accept ink and/or adhesive.
10. A hanging bag according to any preceding claim, wherein the outer surfaces of the front piece and the back piece are printed.
11. A hanging bag according to any preceding claim, wherein the strip piece is attached such that its treated surface is the surface intended for adhesion to the front piece
12. A hanging bag according to any preceding claim, wherein the strip piece is configured such that it is naturally directed downwards.
13. A hanging bag according to claim 12, wherein the strip piece is configured by means of a crease such that it is naturally directed downwards.
14. A hanging bag according to any preceding claim, wherein the hanger is a hook.
15. A hanging bag according to claim 15, wherein the hook is rigid.
16. A hanging bag according to claim 14 or claim 15, wherein the hook is welded onto the header.
17. A hanging bag according to any preceding claim, which is formed from plastics material.
18. A hanging bag substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
19. A method of forming a hanging bag, comprising the steps of: forming a pouch having a front piece and a back piece and an opening at the top of the front piece, such that the back piece extends above the front piece to form a header region; bonding a hanger for hanging the bag to the header region; and joining a strip piece to the header region below the attachment position of the hook, for use as a flap for closing the bag.
20. A method according to claim 19, in which prior to the formation of the pouch the strip piece is formed by cutting from one of the front piece or the back piece, and the strip piece is then turned relative to the front piece and/or the back piece such that a treated side of the strip is joined in an orientation in which it faces in the same direction as the front piece.
21. A method according to claim 20, in which the strip piece is creased such that it naturally lies in an orientation in which the treated side faces in the opposite direction as the front piece.
22. A method substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.