US3417912A

US3417912A - Plastic bag with integral closing facility

Info

Publication number: US3417912A
Application number: US629441A
Authority: US
Inventors: Jerre H Paxton
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1967-04-10
Filing date: 1967-04-10
Publication date: 1968-12-24
Anticipated expiration: 1985-12-24

Description

Dec. 24, 1968 J. H. PAXTON PLASTIC BAG WITH INTEGRAL CLOSING FACILITY Filed April 10, 1967 JERRE H. PAXTON INVENTOR.

ATTORNEY.

United States Patent '0 3,417,912 PLASTIC BAG WITH INTEGRAL CLOSING FACILITY Ierre H. Paxton, P.O. Box 2098, Yakima, Wash. 98902 Filed Apr. 10, 1967, Ser. No. 629,441 1 Claim. (Cl. 229-62) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE ,A transparent flexible bag, made of a suitable sheet plastic material such as polyethylene, which has integrated therewith at a suitable distance below the open mouth of the bag a Kwik Lok type bag closure so that when the BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the invention The provision of facilities for use by customers in selfservice markets in bagging articles picked up by them in the market which they desire to purchase so that these can be readily identified, priced and the entire transaction recorded on a cash register strip by a checker representing the merchant.

Description of the prior art Heretofore kraft bags made of fairly heavy paper have been universally used in self-service markets to facilitate the customers collecting merchandise and delivering it to the checker for identification and pricing and the rendering of an account to the customer of the prices of the individual articles and the total due the merchant for the entire lot of merchandise purchased.

The stiffness of these kraft bags has made them very servicable in this field for this characteristic tends to give the merchandise collected therein a fiat base at the bottom causing the bag to stand upright when set on the counter. Thus the checker could readily look down through the mouth of the bag and inspect and identify the merchandise contained therein. This characteristic also facilitated the handling of the bags of merchandise in packing them into larger bags or card-board boxes for delivery to the customer.

The advantages in using kraft bags for the collecting of merchandise in a self-service market have been discounted, however, by the discovery by many merchants that they are losing considerable quantities of merchandise through a shoplifting which is facilitated by the use of the kraft bags. Not only is the theft of merchandise accomplished by the shoplifter hiding it somewhere in his clothing but the practice is not uncommon of putting a piece of expensive merchandise such as a T-bone steak in the bottom of a kraft bag and then covering it up with potatoes or other merchandise sold by weight at a much lower price than the steak. The checker, being generally in a hurry, does not detect a deception of this kind with the result that merchants are suffering very substantial losses of merchandise.

Efforts to use transparent flexible plastic bags for the collection of merchandise by customers in self-service has heretofore been defeated by the fact that such bags do not support the merchandise in a column as is the case in 3,417,912 Patented Dec. 24, 1968 using kraft bags so that a plastic bag filled with merchandise must generally always be laid on the counter and when this is done the merchandise tends to escape from the open end of the bag.

Summary of the invention Inasmuch as the bags provided for the customers use in a self-service market in collecting merchandise must be widely distributed throughout the market it is not practical to depend upon the conventional means provided in the art for closing plastic bags for the closing of such bags when they are provided for use by customers. It is therefore a principal object of the present invention to provide plastic bags for the use above indicated in which each bag is provided at the time it is manufactured with a neckclosing facility which is integral with the bag. This facility comprises a sheet clip type of closure made of a suitable plastic material such as polystyrene and having a bag neck confining aperture formed therein which communicates through a narrow opening with one edge of the closure, the clip being flexible so that jaws formed at opposite sides of the narrow opening may be worked around the twisted neck of the bag this introducing the latter into the aperture of the closure. This closure and equipment for applying the same is manufactured and distributed throughout the world by Kwik Lok Corporation of Yakima, Wash.

In the present invention, a Kwik Lok Closure, with the edge having the neck receiving opening disposed upwardly towards the open mouth of the bag is integrated with the bag by application of hot glue to the lower end portion of the closure and the latter is then pressed against the material of the bag. The closure is thus free to swing outwardly relative to the bag about the area in which it is secured to said bag.

When the customer has collected as much merchandise in a plastic bag of the present invention as this will hold and still allow the neck thereof to be closed, the customer bunches together the loose material of the neck portion of the bag in one hand and twists this to reduce said neck portion to a rope like body which is exposed just inwardly from the connection above described between said closure and the material of the bag. With the twisted neck held in one hand, the two jaws on opposite sides of the clos ure aperture are now engaged by the thumb and finger of the free hand and pressed inwardly against such twisted rope so as to cause these jaws to spring outwardly and pass around said rope and come together on the other side thereof thus trapping the twisted neck of the bag within the aperture of said closure. Both hands may now be removed from the neck of the bag and the same will remain fastened by said closure until a reverse pressure is applied to the jaws of the closure to deliberately remove these from their embracing relation with the neck of the bag.

Brief description 0 the drawing FIGURE 1 is a'diagrammatic perspective view of an upper portion of a preferred embodiment of the present invention showing the open mouth of the neck of said bag gapping apart slightly.

FIGURE 2 is a fragmentary perspective view illustrating a bag of the invention after this has been loaded with merchandise to a maximum extent possible while leaving the neck of the bag free for application of a closure thereto, and shows said neck being twisted and held by the thumb and forefinger of one hand after its having been twisted into rope like compactness and with this located near the Kwik Lok type of closure which has been secured along its bottom edge as by hot glue to the material of the bag and with the closure standing away from the twisted neck of the bag.

- FIGURE 3 illustrates the next step following that shown in FIGURE 2 in the closing of the bag of the invention by the application of the thumb and forefinger of the other hand to the two jaws ,of the. closure of the bag so as to swing the closure upwardly, against the twisted neck of the bag and force the jawsof said closure to separate and pass around the twisted neck until the latter comes to rest confined within the closure aperturc.

FIGURE4 is a view similar to FIGURE 3 and shows the bag of the invention after it has been closed by performance of the steps shown in FIGURES 2 and 3 and the hands have then been removed from the bag so as to allow the neck portion of the bag to fan out in a flower-like expansion while the portion of the twistedneck of the bag which was captured by the closureremains so confined.

FIGURE 5 is a fragmentary vertical sectional view taken on the line 55 of FIGURE 1 and illustrates the manner in which the lower edge of the closure is secured to the bag of the invention by hot glue, leaving the closure (free to pivot outwardly or inwardly relative to the bag about the area of its connection to the latter.

Description. of the preferred embodiment The preferred embodiment of the invention shown in the drawings comprises a plastic bag which is preferably made of sheet polyethylene of the typecommonly used in the making of bags for bagging bread, buns and the like and the bag may be of any construction and will be manufactured in various sizes to suit the needs of the customers using the same. The bag 10 is preferably uniform in cross section from the bottom to the top thereof and the upper end is open as shown in FIGURE 1. For convenience in describing the invention, the upper end portion 11 of the bag 10 which extends about 2%" downwardly from said upper end will be referred to asthe neck of the bag. At a central position relative to the bag and at the lower boundary of the neck 11, a Kwik Lok type closure 12, which is preferably made of sheet polystyrene, is secured along its lower edge as by one or more spots 13 of hot glue to the front wall 14 of said bag. The closure 12 has formed internally therein a bag neck closing aperture 15 which communicates with the upper edge of the closure through a narrow opening 16 thereby dividing said upper edge into a pair of opposed jaws 17.

The application of closures 12 to the bags 10 is done in the process of manufacturing these bags and the bags are packed in stacks with the bags in fiat condition superimposed one upon the other. These bags may or may not be held together as by a wicket passing through apertures in lips which extend from one side of the mouth of each bag upwardly therefrom, as is common practice in packaging these bags for use by an automatic bagging machine. If so packaged and placed around the market where they will be readily available to customers, the customer can readily take hold of the topmost bag in the stack and pull it free from the stack by rupturing the small amount of material of the bag which retains it in the stack by engagement with the wicket. Any such arrangement (for packaging the bags is of course no part of the present in enti n and i ihfi t f re not illustrated in the drawings,

After a customer has separated one of the b ags 10 from a stack of these he uses the same to collect merchandise in a suitable quantity which the bag is capable of holdingand then proceeds to close the bag by bunchin-g together the neck 11 thereof with his two hands until he can seize the entire bunch in one hand andtwist the same as shown in FIGURE 2 to form the neck 11 into a twisted rope 18 of sheet plastic. When a plastic rope 18 has been formed of the neck 11 as shown in FIGURE 2 and the bunched neck of the bag is still pinched between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand to maintain the neck thus twisted, the thumb and forefinger of the ,left hand is used to swing the closure 12 upwardly around its connection with the film of the bag so that this closure overlies the twisted rope 18 as shown in FIGURE 3. The thumb and forefinger of the left hand are then pressed against the jaws 17 of the closure so as to causethese to 'yild apart and pass around said twisted neck and snap together on the other side thereof thereby trapping the neck of the bag in the closure aperture 15. When this has been done, the closing of the bag has been completed and no more attention need to be paid to the matter by the customer who then places the bag in his merchandise collecting cart and proceeds with his marketing.

When the customer arrives at the checking stand and either the customer or the checker removes the bag of merchandise from the cart and places it on the counter, the checker can readily see through the. transparent plastic bag and accurately identify all the items of merchandise contained therein so a true account can be made of the merchandise delivered to the customer by the checker. Furthermore the closing of each bag finalizes the packaging of the produce and greatlysimp lifies the loading of the merchandise into cardboard cartons or large kraft bags provided by the merchant for the customer to use in taking home the merchandise collected in the smaller plastic bags.

I claim: I

1. A plastic bag having a fiat sheet bag closure secured to an'outside face of a wall of said bag just'below a substantial twistable neck portion of said bag adjacent the open upper end of said bag, said closure having a bag neck confining aperture formed inwardly from an edge thereof and connected with said edge by a narrow opening thereby producing a pair of jaws in said closure located on opposite sides of said opening, said-closure being securedto said bag at the opposite edge of the closure from said edge having said opening therein, said closure being of stiff but springy material so that said jaws may be sprung apart by swinging said closure upwardly and pressing the same against the twisted neck of said bag so as to cause said jaws to pass around said neck and trap said neck in the aperture of said closure.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS