GB2415178A - Container having a re-usable adhesive on an exterior surface - Google Patents

Abstract

A container such as a beverage cup or bottle has a re-usable adhesive (16) provided on an exterior surface thereof. In a preferred embodiment, the container comprises a body portion (18) and a lid (15), the lid (15) being provided with said re-usable adhesive (16), and further including a retaining means (17), the retaining means (17) being configured to engage the body portion (18) when the lid is adhered to a substrate and thereby retain the body portion (18) in a given position. Alternatively the adhesive may be provided at the bottom of the body portion (15). The adhesive reduces the risk of the container toppling over.

Description

DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION

"IMPROVEMENTS IN OR RELATING TO A CONTAINER" This invention relates to an improved container, in particular a beverage container for hot and cold drinks such as coffee, tea, hot chocolate, alcoholic drinks, soft drinks or the like.

Disposable beverage containers are well known and are generally used in circumstances where it is required to "take-away" a beverage which has been purchased for immediate drinking or, additionally, where there is a need for cheap, light, non-breakable beverage containers; Such containers are thus generally used in both public and private places, for example at events such as barbecues, parties or the like, as well as when travelling by car, plane, train, boat or the like. Generally, such beverage containers have been formed from either polystyrene, plastics or cardboard material, each of which are normally cheap, easy to process and lightweight. However, beverage containers traditionally manufactured from such materials had the disadvantage that, because of their often lightweight construction, they are prone to accidentally toppling over when resting on a surface, particularly when the container is being used in an outdoor environment where the strength of the wind is often sufficient to knock over the containers when they are empty, or contain only a small amount of beverage. In addition, such conventional beverage containers may also have the disadvantage that they are prone to accidentally sliding across surfaces they rest on, particularly where the surface is generally smooth and the surface itself is moving, as may be the case in, for example, moving trains or planes. Such sliding movement may result in consequent toppling over of the container (particularly where the container rests on a table and slides beyond the edge of that table) but, in any event, is an undesirable occurence.

There is thus a need for a beverage container which is less susceptible to toppling over when place on a surface, yet which is nevertheless lightweight to allow ease of portability.

It is an object of the present invention to seek to provide an improved container.

According to the present invention there is provided a container including a re-usable adhesive provided on an exterior surface thereof.

Preferably, the container is a cup or bottle.

In a preferred embodiment, the container comprises a body portion and a lid, the lid being provided with said re-usable adhesive, and further including a retaining means, the retaining means being configured to engage the body portion when the lid is adhered to a substrate and thereby retain the body portion in a given position.

In one embodiment, the re-usable adhesive comprises infusible, non-polar organic liquid dispersible, non-polar organic liquid insoluble, inherently tacky, elastomeric copolymer microspheres consisting essentially of about 90 to about 99.5 percent by weight of one or more oleophilic, water-emulsifiable alkyl acrylate esters, at least one of said esters being selected from the group cons i sting o f i so- octyl acryl ate, 4 -methyl-2 -p entyl acryl ate, 2 -methylbutyl acrylate, and sec-butyl acrylate and about 10 to about 0.5 percent by weight of one or more monomers selected from the group consisting of trimethylamine methacrylimide, trimethylamine p-vinyl benzimide, ammonium acrylate, sodium acrylate, N,N-dimethyl-N-(- methacryloxyethyl) ammonium propionate betaine, l,1-dimethyl-1-2- hydroxypropyl) amine methacrylimide, 4,4,9-trimethyl-4-azonia-7 oxa-9-decene-1-sulphonate, 1,1 -dimethyl- 1 -(2,3-dihydroxypropyl) amine methacrylimide, and maelic anhydride, said copolymer having been prepared by aqueous suspension polymerization in the presence of an anion emulsifier at a level above said emulsifier's critical micelle concentration.

Preferably, the acrylate ester is iso-octyl acrylate and the ionic monomer is trimethylamine methacrylimide.

Conveniently, the acrylate monomer is iso-octyl acrylate and the ionic monomer is trimethylamine p-vinyl benzimide.

Advantageously, the acrylate monomer is iso-octyl acrylate and the ionic monomer is 1,1-dimethyl-1(2,3-dihydroxypropyl) amine methacrylimide.

Preferably, the acrylate monomer is iso-octyl acrylate and the ionic monomer is N,N-dimethyl-n-(-methacryloxyethyl) ammonium propionate betaine.

Conveniently, the acrylate monomer is iso-octyl acrylate and the ionic monomer is ammonium acrylate.

Advantageously, the acrylate monomer is iso-octyl acrylate and the ionic monomer is 4,4,9-trimethyl-4,7-oxo-8-oxa-dec-9-ene-1-sul-fonate.

Preferably, the acrylate monomer is iso-octyl acrylate and the ionic monomer is sodium acrylate.

Conveniently, the acrylate monomer is iso-octyl acrylate and the other monomer is maelic anhydride.

Advantageously, the acrylate monomer is 4-methyl-2-pentyl acrylate and the ionic monomer is trimethylamine methacrylimide.

Preferably, the acrylate monomer is 2-methylbutyl acrylate and the other monomer is maelic anhydride.

Conveniently, the microspheres contain at least two of said alkyl acrylate ester monomers.

Advantageously, the ionic monomer is trimethylamine methacrylimide and the 2 0 acryl ate monomers are i so- octyl acrylate and 4-methyl-2 -p entyl acryl ate.

In an alternate embodiment, the re-usable adhesive is in the form of a gelled adhesive comprising a rubber component; a water soluble or water dispersible tackifying agent; and a gelling agent.

Preferably, the tackifying agent is selected from the group consisting of the hydrogenated ester of rosin and the ester of hydrogenated rosin.

Conveniently, the tackifying agent comprises hydrogenated methyl ester of rosary.

Advantageously, the tackifying agent comprises the glycerol ester of hydrogenated rosin.

Preferably, the adhesive product further comprises a friction reducing agent comprising a polyhydric aliphatic alcohol.

Conveniently, the friction reducing agent is glycerine.

Alternatively, the friction reducing agent is propylene glycol.

Preferably, the adhesive product further comprises an antioxidant.

Conveniently, the gelling agent is a gel-forming salt of an aliphatic carboxylic acid.

Advantageously, the gel-forming salt of the aliphatic carboxylic acid has an alkali metal cation.

Preferably, the gelling agent is sodium stearate.

Conveniently, the natural rubber latex component has a low ammonia content.

Advantageously, the rubber component comprises between about 5 to 20 percent by weight of the product on a water free basis.

Preferably the tackifying agent comprises between about 15 to 70 percent by weight of the product on a water free basis.

The present invention will now be described in more detail, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: FIGURE 1 shows a diagrammatic sectional view of a container according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIGURE 2 shows a diagrammatic side view (partially in phantom) of a container according to an alternative embodiment of the present invention.

FIGURE 3 shows a diagrammatic side view (partially in phantom) of the container of Figure 2 in use.

Figure 1 shows a container in the particular form of a cup 1 which, in the embodiment shown is in the form of a cardboard material cup of the type generally used to hold "take-away" beverages but may equally be in the form of a molded polystyrene or plastic cup such as those used, for example, at outdoor events such as barbecues or the like and often on transport such as trains, planes, boats or the like.

The cup 1 comprises a base portion 2 including a generally flat, circular base wall 3 and a downwardly depending skirt 4 (which, in the present embodiment, also extends inwardly of the edge of the base wall 3) defining a generally annular contact surface 5. A circumferential wall 6 is formed integrally with the base wall 3 and skirt 4 and extends upwardly and outwardly from the edge of the base wall 3 to define a generally circular rim 7 of larger circumference than the generally circular base wall 3. Thus, the base wall 3 and circumferential side wall 6 together define a generally frusto-conical chamber 8 which may receive a beverage 9 such as, for example tea, coffee or soft drinks.

The cup 1 may be provided with a lid 10 which comprises a top wall 11 and a circumferential skirt 12 which extends downwardly and outwardly from the edge of the top wall 11 to define a generally circular rim 13 of approximately equal circumference to the cup rim 7. The lid 10 may be formed of any suitable plastics material, such as those plastics commonly employed to produce the lids of conventional "take-away" beverage containers and, in the embodiment shown, the skirt 12 is provided with a degree of resilience therein so that the rim 13 may be deformed outwardly upon contact with the rim 7, thus sliding over the rim 7 in a "friction fit" to seal the lid to the container and enclose the beverage 9 within the container. Preferably, the lid 10 is provided with a drinking aperture (not shown) through which the beverage 9 may be discharged as required. In any event, it will be appreciated that, in order to discharge the beverage 9 from the chamber 8, a person need merely remove the lid 10 and pour the beverage 9 out through the open end of the cup 1 defined by the rim 7.

The contact surface 5 is provided with a layer of re-usable adhesive 14 which may be of any conventional form of re-usable adhesive, that is, any form of adhesive which, once applied to a substrate, remains generally stable but nevertheless permits continued, repeated re-adherence of the coated substrate to the same or different contact surfaces without the need for re-application of the adhesive on said coated substrate.

Preferred adhesives include an adhesive comprising acrylate copolymer microspheres of the type disclosed in US3,691,140 (Silver), which microspheres are in the form of infusible, non-polar organic liquid dispersible, non-polar organic liquid insoluble, inherently tacky, elastomeric copolymer microspheres consisting essentially of about 90 to about 99.5 percent by weight of one or more oleophilic, wateremulsifiable alkyl acrylate esters, at least one of said esters being selected from the group consisting if iso-octyl acrylate, 4-methyl-2 -p entyl acrylate, 2 -methylbutyl acrylate, and sec-butyl acryl ate and about 10 to about 0.5 percent by weight of one or more monomers selected from the group consisting of trimethylamine methacrylimide, trimethylamine p-vinyl benzimide, ammonium acrylate, sodium acrylate, N,N-dimethyl-N-(-methacryloxyethyl) ammonium propionate betaine, 1,1-dimethyl-1-2-hydroxypropyl) amine methacrylimide, 4,4,9-trimethyl-4-azonia-7 oxa-9-decene-1-sulphonate, 1,1-dimethyl-1-(2,3-dihydroxypropyl) amine methacrylimide, and maelic anhydride, said copolymer having been prepared by aqueous suspension polymerization in the presence of an anion emulsifier at a level above said emulsifier's critical micelle concentration.

Alternative preferred adhesives include the adhesive disclosed in US4,684, 685 (Shuman et al) which is a gelled adhesive comprising a rubber component, a water soluble or water dispersible tackifying agent and a gelling agent. The tackifying agent may be the hydrogenated ester of rosin or the ester of hydrogenated rosin and the tackifying agent may comprise hydrogenated methyl ester of rosin or glycerol ester of hydrogenated rosin. Preferably, the tackifying agent comprises between about 15 to 70 percent by weight of the product on a water free basis.

In a preferred embodiment, the re-usable gelled adhesive of the form disclosed in US4,684,685 may further comprise a friction reducing agent comprising a polyhydrate aliphatic alcohol, which friction reducing agent may, in particular, be glycerine or propylene glycol. In addition, the gelled adhesive may comprise an antioxidant. Preferably the gelling agent is a yell forming salt of an aliphatic carboxylic acid, which may have an alkali metal cation, or, alternatively, the gelling agent may be a sodium stearate. The rubber component may be in the form of a natural rubber latex component having a low ammonia content and the rubber component may comprise between about 5 to 20 percent by weight of the adhesive on a water free basis.

In use of the cup 1, a person may hold the cup in his or her hand, in conventional manner; in addition, when the person places the cup in an upright position on a surface such as, for example, a table, the reusable adhesive layer 14 will act to adhere the cup to the surface, therefore reducing the risk of the cup toppling over and/or undesirable sliding movement of the cup across the surface, particularly in the case where the cup is very lightweight and/or contains only a small amount of beverage, with the result that the risk of beverage spillage from toppling over of the cup, and/or undesirable movement of the cup across the surface, is reduced. When a person wishes to drink from the cup once again, he or she may merely remove the cup from the surface by manually lifting it therefrom and, subsequently, may once again place the cup on a surface (which need not be the same surface as previously) so that the re-usable adhesive layer once again acts to adhere the cup to the surface on which it rests. It will be appreciated that the re-usable nature of the adhesive layer 14 allows the cup to be repeatedly adhered to a variety of given surfaces during the lifetime of the cup.

Figure 2 shows an alternative embodiment of the present invention which comprises a container in the form of a cup 18. The cup 18, representing the body portion of the container, is of the same construction as the cup 1, except that the contact surface 5 of the cup is not provided with the re-usable adhesive layer 14.

The container of Figure2 is provided with a lid 15 of the same basic construction as the lid 10 of Figure 1 and which, similarly, engages with the rim of the cup 18 in a friction fit. However, in contrast to the lid 10 of Figure 1, the lid 15 of Figure 2 is provided with a re-usable adhesive layer 16 (which, in the particular example shown in Figure 2, is shown as spanning the entire surface of the lid 15) which may again be formed from any re-usable adhesive as in the case of re-usable adhesive layer 14 (Figure 1). The lid 15 of Figure 2 is also provided with retaining means in the form of a resilient circumferential wall 17 (shown in phantom in Figure 2) which projects downwardly from the top wall of the lid 15. The circumferential wall 17 is configured so as to be of approximately the same size and shape as the base wall of the cup 1 (which, in this case, is generally circular) and may be formed integrally with the top wall of the lid 15 or be formed separately and then permanently fixed to the lower surface of the top wall of the lid 15. Again, the lid 15 may be provided with a drinking aperture (not shown) to be used to discharge the contents of the cup 18 as and when required.

Figure 3 shows how the lid 15 may be used to provide a stable foundation for the cup 18 when it is placed on a surface 19. Thus, the lid 15 may be removed from the cup 18 (in which case the contents of the container 18 may be discharged through the open end thereof) and placed upside down on the surface 19 so that the re-usable adhesive layer 16 adheres the lid 15 to the surface 19. The cup 18 may then be positioned in an upright position so that the contact surface 5 of the cup 18 is positioned above the circumferential resilient wall 17 and the cup 18 may be pressed down towards the top wall of the lid 15 such that the resilient circumferential wall 17 is resiliently deformed to engage and "grip" the cup 18 in a stable upright position, thereby retaining the cup 18 in an upright position to resist toppling over of the cup 18.

It will be appreciated that, by positioning the re-usable adhesive layer 16 on the top wall of the lid 15, a person using the cup 18 is able to choose whether or not to employ the re-usable adhesive properties of the adhesive layer 16 when placing the cup on a surface such as, for example, a table, or whether to merely place the cup 18 directly onto the table in an upright position, with contact surface 5, contacting the surface 19 so that the cup 18 itself does not adhere to the surface 19 (assuming the surface 19 is not itself adhesive). Thus, where it is not desirable to contact an adhesive layer with the surface 19, for example, where the surface 19 is glass and, as such, the adhesive layer 16 may leave residual adhesive "marks" on the glass surface which look unsightly and may be difficult to clean, a person can merely chose to place the cup 18 directly onto such a surface (perhaps with the lid 15 engaged with the open rim of the cup); in this way, any problems associated with contacting an adhesive layer with the surface 19 are conveniently avoided. Nevertheless, where a person wishes to effectively adhere the cup 18 to a surface (being a surface which is suitable for contact with a re-usable adhesive layer) the person may position the lid 15 and cup 18 as shown in Figure 3 to effectively secure the cup 18 to the surface 19, thus preventing, or at least resisting, toppling over of the cup 18 and subsequent spillage of the beverage contained therein.

For the avoidance of doubt, it is noted that the particular configuration of the containers shown in Figures 1 to 3, including the lids and shape or position of the adhesive layers, are merely intended as an example and, indeed, it will be appreciated that the container may take any of a number of different forms and, in particular, may be in the form of a cup of square or rectangular cross section, or any shape of bottle. In the case of a bottle, where the lid of the bottle is likely to be of much smaller cross section than the base wall of the bottle, it is envisaged that, in the embodiment shown in Figures 2 and 3, the lid of the bottle would not be provided with a retaining means in the form of a circumferential resilient wall but, rather, would be provided with a retaining means in the form of a substantially rigid projection projecting downwardly from the lower surface of the top wall of the lid which would be received in a mating recess provided in the base wall of the bottle itself to effectively secure the bottle to the lid (when the lid rests in an upturned position on a surface).

Indeed, such a retaining means might equally be provided on the lid 15 and cup 18 as an alternative to the resilient circumferential wall 17.

In a preferred embodiment, any adhesive layer may optionally be provided with a peel-away covering layer which may prevent unwanted adherence of the container to other surfaces prior to use of the container, in particular during storage and/or transport of the containers.

It will be appreciated that the re-usable adhesive layers employed in the present invention may be varied in their tackiness in order to suit the particular application. Thus, for example, a stronger (but nevertheless re-usable) adhesive may be employed where the container is sufficiently large or heavy to warrant it, as may be the case for certain bottles.

When used in this specification and claims, the terms "comprises" and "comprising" and variations thereof mean that the specified features, steps or integers are included. The terms are not to be interpreted to exclude the presence of other features, steps or components.

The features disclosed in the foregoing description, or the following claims, or the accompanying drawings, expressed in their specific forms or in terms of a means for performing the disclosed function, or a method or process for attaining the disclosed result, as appropriate, may, separately, or in any combination of such features, be utilised for realising the invention in diverse forms thereof.

Claims (8)

1. A container including a re-usable adhesive provided on an exterior surface thereof.

2. A container according to claim 1, wherein the container is a cup.

3. A container according to claim 1, wherein the container is a bottle.

4. A container according to claims 1 or 2, wherein the container comprises a body portion and a lid, the lid being provided with said re- usable adhesive, and further including a retaining means, the retaining means being configured to engage the body portion when the lid is adhered to a substrate and thereby retain the body portion in a given position.

5. A container according to any preceding claim, wherein the re-usable adhesive comprises infusible, non-polar organic liquid dispersible, nonpolar organic liquid insoluble, inherently tacky, elastomeric copolymer microspheres consisting essentially of about 90 to about 99.5 percent by weight of one or more oleophilic, water-emulsifiable alkyl acrylate esters, at least one of said esters being selected from the group consisting if iso-octyl acrylate, 4-methyl-2-pentyl acrylate, 2 -methylbutyl acryl ate, and s ec-butyl acryl ate and about 10 to about 0.5 percent by weight of one or more monomers selected from the group consisting of trimethylamine methacrylimide, trimethylamine p-vinyl benzimide, ammonium acrylate, sodium acrylate, N,N-dimethyl-N-(-methacryloxyethyl) ammonium propionate betaine, 1,1 -dimethyl- 1 -2-hydroxypropyl) amine methacrylimide, 4,4,9-trimethyl-4-azonia-7 oxa-9-decene-1-sulphonate, 1,1 -dimethyl- 1 -(2,3-dihydroxypropyl) amine methacrylimide, and maelic anhydride, said copolymer having been prepared by aqueous suspension polymerization in the presence of an anion emulsifier at a level above said emulsifier's critical micelle concentration.

6. A container according to claims 1 to 5, wherein the re-usable adhesive is a gelled adhesive comprising a rubber component, a water soluble or water dispersible tackifying agent and a gelling agent.

7. A container as hereinbefore described with reference to Figure 1 of the accompanying drawings.

8. A container as hereinbefore described with reference to Figures 2 and 3 of the accompanying drawings.