PT2630051T - Tamper indicating security bag - Google Patents

Description

DESCRIPTION "SAFETY BAG WITH RAPE INDICATION"

This invention relates to security bags which indicate tampering according to the preamble of claim 1, and in particular to safety bags for the transport of money or other valuable articles. Generally, such bags comprise a body having a catch collar which is adapted to seal the bag in such a way that the contents can not be accessed without damaging the seal or the bag in such a way as to render evident any violation.

Conventionally, high security bags of this type are constructed with a tamper evident tape which is attached to the bag during the manufacturing process, and in a typical example the tape can be welded to the bag by a heat sealing or sonic welding process , in the case of a thermoplastic bag, or bonded by means of an adhesive. The reason for this method of construction is that it allows the relatively complex layer structure of the tamper evident sealant to be preformed on a separate tape, rather than in the bag itself.

However, this also has the disadvantage that it creates an inevitable weakness at the junction of the bag and the tape, where the alleged tamper agent can potentially disguise the access point by re-welding or re-gluing after unauthorized access . In other words, since there is already a discontinuity in the structure at this point, it will be difficult to subsequently determine whether the discontinuity was part of the original seal, or whether it was introduced later.

In addition, this construction puts a high level of responsibility on the part of the manufacturer to ensure that the tape is consistently attached to each bag, since again, any variation in the manufacturing standards at this time could be difficult to distinguish from from an unauthorized attempt to detach and replace the seal.

Similarly, depending on the binding method, it may be possible for the tampering agent to completely remove the tamper evident tape at its attachment point and subsequently replace it with a tape made from a like product. Again, consistency issues in manufacturing construction will also affect the degree of "evidence of violation" that can be achieved in such circumstances. WO 01/04014 (Sealed Air Corporation) discloses a tamper evident bag on which the preamble of claim 1 is based.

According to the invention, there is provided a tamper-evident security bag comprising a front wall and a rear wall which form a bag having an opening, wherein the rear wall provides an integral locking collar which extends to in addition to the aperture, which is configured to in use close the aperture by being folded over the aperture and sealed over the front wall, the integral closure flange being provided with tamper evidence features, which includes: a standard release layer , a paint layer applied onto the release layer, a thermochromatic paint applied in a region remote from the release layer and the paint layer, and an adhesive, characterized in that the adhesive is applied to the catch collar which covers the characteristics of evidence of tampering and in a region on the rear wall within the aperture of the bag so that, in use, the back surface of the front wall surround is sealed with the back wall to close the aperture before the catch collar is folded and sealed onto the front wall.

It will be appreciated that the ink and adhesive layers may be formed on an integral closure collar, or in an area of the bag body over which the closure collar is to be sealed, or, alternatively, some of the layers may be formed on the closure collar while some are formed over the sealing zone of the body.

Preferably, in order to ensure that the printing ink reliably adheres to a substrate, such as polyethylene, or other similar film material, the surface of the material is treated, using known techniques, such as discharge by crown (effluvium), plasma gas, or chemicals, which effectively etch the surface. In one embodiment of the invention, batch surface treatment is done, for example, by covering the surface with a batch barrier prior to treatment, so as to create predetermined zones of untreated material, and such that a subsequent overall coating ink or adhesive will not be uniformly affixed to the surface so that a clear pattern can be revealed in the event that a violator attempts to reopen the closure member.

Alternatively, in another embodiment, the initial surface treatment is applied uniformly, but a discontinuous release layer is formed at the top of the treatment surface, so that, once again, the subsequent layers of paint and / or adhesive will be bonded with higher bond strength in some areas, and lower bond strength in others.

It will be appreciated that the peel enhancing zones may, for example, be in the form of a message or a symbol so as to make the evidence of violation much more obvious. The seal may also incorporate in a manner, temperature reactive inks, such as thermochromic ink, which also allows the bag to show evidence of tampering. If it is subjected to heat, cold or other similar situations, such as mechanical manipulation or chemical attack. Preferably, the arrangement of the tamper evident ink layers is such that they are placed on both sides, is to say, by the one-side film substrate, and one adhesive layer on the other side, so that it is also possible to reduce the risk of pre-infringement. This relates to a scenario in which the alleged violator previously treats the closure element by interfering with the tamper evident layers before the bag is closed, so that it can subsequently be opened without evidence of tampering.

According to a further preferred feature of the present invention, the bag is formed from a strip of material which is folded over to form a bag having a front wall and a back wall of material bound by a fold forming the bag inner end, at the same time that one of the wall sections is left longer than the other, so as to form a closure collar. The side edges of the bag may be heat-sealed or otherwise welded together, with the heat seals incorporating the so-called "security print".

Likewise, when starting with an elongated strip, the width of which is at least four times the length of the bag desired, it is possible to produce bags in "two-by-four" formations by folding inwardly toward the middle, the two free ends of the strip. In this way, a continuous fold is formed along each of the opposing edges, providing the respective overlapping portions. This allows a series of pairs of bags to be formed, which are then longitudinally cut away from the length set below the medium. Preferably, in any case, before the folded portions forming the individual bags are finally cut through the entire length, any required printing of the adhesive, or of ink or other surface pretreatment, may be carried out in a continuous manner, over the central region in the region of the folded edges.

Alternatively such pairs of bags may also be produced from a continuous extruded film tube which is flattened and then cut longitudinally so as to form a pair of face-to-face overlapping portions.

Some embodiments of the invention will now be described by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a diagrammatic perspective view illustrating a first known process for making tamper evident safety bags; Figure 2 is a diagrammatic perspective view of a known device for making safety bags; Figure 3 is a diagrammatic perspective view of a preferred method for manufacturing bags according to the present invention together with the bags thus made; Figure 4 is another perspective view of the method according to the present invention; Figure 4a is a detailed enlarged view of a portion of the drawing of Figure 4a showing a step in the printing process;

Figures 5a to 5h show a plan view of the region showing tampering of the bag as characteristic layers of tamper evidence are added;

Figures 6a to 6h show schematically what is shown in plan in Figures 5a to 5h Figure 7 shows a cross-sectional view of the partially formed bags shown in Figures 5h and 6h and Figure 7a shows an enlarged portion of a part of the figure 7;

Referring to the drawings, Figure 1 shows a basic method for manufacturing safety bags from a roll of thermoplastic film 2, wherein the material web is folded in the middle to form a bag 1 (since the sides are sealed) and has a security tape 3 attached to the mouthpiece to form a tamper proof seal. The actual tape itself may be made from a similar single healed sheet, which is then cut into multiple "tracks", for example ten. The security print in proper patterns will be applied generally to the screen, before being split into the individual sections of tape.

On the other hand, in order to produce bags having an integral security feature, as shown in Figure 2, a roll 4 of a screen which has already been folded in half, as indicated by the overlapping of sections 6 and 8, may be printed by below a security-imprinted border 10, before individual bags 12 are cut from the strip. As shown, the folded underlying portion of the fabric 8 is made longer than the overlapping portion 6, so that the embroidery 10 extends with sufficient spacing so as to form a closure collar for the mouthpiece 14 of the bag, from that the side edges 16 and 18 have been heat sealed.

It will be apparent, however, from the illustration in Figure 2, that this method only allows one bag to be made at a time on the roll, and taking into account the fact that the affixing of a ribbon in allows so many more pieces for evidence of tampering to be made for a given width of the single healed sheet, the method described with respect to Figure 2 has only been used to prepare very basic tamper evident security bags with very few features for for example, a single layer for adhesive coated solvent detection ink.

Figures 3 and 4 illustrate an improvement in this process, wherein the roll 20 of plastic material consists of a much wider continuous strip which has been folded inwardly from both long edges 22, 24, so as to form a mold at "C" leaving an exposed region exposed in the lower center region of the screen 26, between the edges 22 and 24 of the flaps formed by the folding, security printing and (for example) the receiving zones may then be printed in the exposed region in central region, thereby preforming a series of pairs of bags joined together by their locking collar portions in the region 26, before separating them by cutting in the underlying portion along the center line 28.

A similar result of molded C-shaped film having a central separation gap between the two flaps can be achieved from an extruded film "tube", cutting it longitudinally from one side. There are two methods that start with a tube, in both cases the tube is flattened and stored in a roll. Thereafter, any longitudinal strip is split from the center of the overlap material to expose the underlying portion of the central zone of the material, or a longitudinal slit may be cut along the length of the overlapping material of the tube and could be pushed further the inner edges of the material along the slot, for example by "groove opening". In order to make the bag according to the invention, after one of the above methods has formed the C-shaped screen shown in Figures 3 and 4, the evidence of tampering characteristics is applied to the underlying part of the screen at central region 26 between the inner edges 22, 24 of the flaps as follows with reference to Figures 5a to 5h and 6a to 6h. It will be seen that the same features are applied in two tracks which may be mirror images relative to the central dividing line 28:

A first ink layer 51 is applied in a pattern (in this case in the form of a pair of lines with the void spelling), directly over the (preferably transparent / translucent) central zone of the underlying part of the screen (see Figures 5a and 6a ).

Thereafter, the central zone 26 is treated to improve the adhesion of the ink, for example by corona treatment (effluvium) 52 (see Figures 5b and 6b). These two steps form a release layer because the ink printed prior to the corona treatment (effluvium) will not adhere to the surface upon which it is printed. One alternative could be to first treat the whole area then apply a peel layer, such as silicone.

Third, as shown in Figures 5c and 6c, a preferred step is carried out whereby a text mask 53 is applied to the region of the peeling layer to mask the peeling of the peeling pattern.

Fourth, an ink 54 is applied over the release layer as shown in Figures 5d and 6d.

This may be followed by a second layer of paint 55 (shown in Figures 5e and 6e), if necessary, to improve the opacity of the ink which covers the release pattern 51 and thicken the ink layer so that it is a more significant air gap is produced when there is a violation that leaves some paint attached to the closure collar and the cover portion of the release pattern adhering to the opposing surface of the closure.

In a sixth step (shown in Figures 5f and 6f) a thermochromatic ink 56 (preferably transparent / translucent) is applied to the central region of the fabric 26 in a region distant from the release layer and layers of cover paint, such that it is disclosed the heating / cooling violation of the closure element. The seventh step is shown in Figures 5g and 6g - in this step an adhesive 57, for example hot melt adhesive is applied to the central part which covers all the above-mentioned characteristics of tamper evidence. In order to provide a double seal, before the adhesive is applied, the inner edges 22, 24 of the flaps are pushed away from one another to expose a larger region of the central region of the fabric 26 such that the adhesive can be applied to the region that will form the closure collar and a region that is under the mouth of the bag which will have to face the opposite side of the bag. The line 60 in figure 5g represents the position where the flaps will return at the moment they form the mouth of the bag and it can be seen that the adhesive extends further inwards (2mm inside the mouth of the bag would suffice, but greater than 1mm could be acceptable and much wider, for example, 10mm would be effective if somewhat unnecessary).

In the eighth step shown in Figures 5h and 6h a release liner 58, for example a sheet is applied over the adhesive. Figure 7 shows a schematic cross-sectional view through the screen after the above eight steps have taken place and following the eight steps the inner edges 22, 24 of the flaps have been returned to the position they will occupy when the screen is cut and sealed to form the bags. The tamper evident features 51 to 56 appear on a portion of the catch collar which in use will be folded over to seal the mouth, but the adhesive 57 extends 2mm below the mouth of the bag and the release liner 58 extends in an additional 2 mm into the bag beyond the adhesive and further an amount, for example, 1 mm on each side of the adhesive to prevent accidental bonding. In one of the steps, it is preferred to form a receiving portion 59, printing over the central region 26 and perforations being formed between the receiving portion 59 and the tamper evidence portion.

Once safety features have been applied, the screen is cut and laterally sealed to attach the flaps to the screen underneath, so that the screen forms a back wall and the flaps become the front walls of the bags. Cutting and side sealing (for example heat welding) can normally occur at equal intervals to form bags of equal width. Figure 8 shows a finished bag made by a process such as that of Figures 3 to 7 (with the release liner removed), wherein a "back wall" 30 (i.e., the underside, as shown in the drawing) is made longer than the "front wall" 32 (the top surface, as seen in the drawings) so as to provide an outwardly extending catch collar 34, the "closed end" 36 of the bag to be formed by folding of the front and rear walls. In the example shown, a "fugitive ink" 38, which is the same as that which is soluble in water or saliva, is printed with a suitable pattern, in the outer zone of the front wall, which in use, is to be superimposed by the while the closure collar includes in itself the evidence of tamper characteristics 51 to 55 in parallel strips separated by the thermochromatic ink strip 56. It is clear that, as mentioned above, a layer of hot melt adhesive 57 , on which locking collar area has been applied, and which also extends into the opening of the bag, but the adhesive is transparent and can not be seen in Figure 8. When the liner is removed, the rear surface of the ends 22, 24 of the front wall may be sealed underneath, before the catch collar 34 is folded over the front surface 32 and sealed thereon.

In this way, a "double seal" is formed in the mouth of the bag, which greatly improves the "evidence of tampering" capability of the assembly.

It should be noted that figure 8 includes a receiving part 59 in the top part of the bag, however, the receiving part need not necessarily be at the top of the bag and without the receiving part at the top, the parts evidence of tampering of the two simultaneously manufactured bags could be printed closer to each other and to the center line 28. In this case, providing a seal which was made ahead of the bag could lead to the fabrication of a receiving part at the closed end 36 of the bag. bag. One such embodiment is shown in Figure 9, wherein like reference numerals refer to like parts, and a seal on the bottom portion of the bag is represented by reference numeral 61 with perforations 60 shown below the seal for reception is highlighted.

Lisbon, October 31, 2016

Claims (5)

A tamper evident safety bag comprising a front wall 32 and a back wall 30 which forms a bag having an aperture, wherein the rear wall 30 provides an integral locking collar 34, which extends beyond the front wall and is configured to close the aperture in use by being folded over the aperture and sealed over the front wall (32), the integral locking collar being provided with evidence of tampering characteristics, including: (51,52), an ink layer (54) applied to the release layer, a thermochromatic ink (56) applied in a region distant from the release layer (51, 52) and the ink layer (54). ) and an adhesive (57), characterized in that the adhesive is applied to the catch collar (34) which covers the evidence of tampering and in a region on the rear wall (30) within the opening of the bag m the end surface (22, 24) of the front wall (32) is sealed to the rear wall (30) in order to close the aperture before the catch collar (34) is folded over the wall (32) and sealed thereon. A tamper evident safety bag according to claim 1, wherein the patterned release layer is formed of a first layer of paint (51) applied in a pattern directly over the closure collar (34) prior to the treatment by crown effect (52). A tamper evident security bag according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising a text mask (53) applied in the region of the peeling layer to mask the peeling of the peeling pattern. A tamper-evident safety bag according to any one of claims 1 to 3, including a second ink layer (55) for improving the opacity of the ink covering the release pattern and thickening the ink layer , so that a more significant air gap is produced when there is breach leaving some paint attached to the closure collar (54) and the cover portion of the release pattern adhering to the opposing surface of the closure. A tamper-evident safety bag according to any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising a release liner (58), applied over the adhesive (57).