WO2015150893A1

WO2015150893A1 - Package for smoking articles

Info

Publication number: WO2015150893A1
Application number: PCT/IB2015/000280
Authority: WO
Inventors: Fiorenzo Draghetti
Original assignee: Gima Tt S.R.L.
Priority date: 2014-04-01
Filing date: 2015-03-03
Publication date: 2015-10-08

Abstract

Package (1) for smoking articles comprising - a group of smoking articles; - a hermetic wrapper (3) that encloses the group of smoking articles and that has an access opening (31); - an adhesive sealing flap (4) that closes the access opening (31) of the hermetic wrapper (3), said flap (4) comprising a grippable tab (41) that does not have an adhesive surface; - a rigid external container (2) that houses the hermetic wrapper (3) and that has an open extremity, said external container (2) having a hinged lid (5) that can rotate between an open position and a closed position to respectively open and close the open extremity; - a rigid collar (6) that wraps around the hermetic wrapper, said collar (6) being placed between the hermetic wrapper (3) and the external container (2), wherein the grippable tab (41) of the adhesive flap (4) is placed between the collar (6) and the hermetic wrapper (3), in such a manner that the grippable tab (41) is held against the hermetic wrapper (3) by the collar (6), said adhesive flap (4) initially being placed between the collar (6) and the hermetic wrapper (3) in an initial closing position, wherein in said closing position the grippable tab (41) is folded back at 180° against an external surface of the adhesive flap (4) by means of the collar (6), an end portion of said grippable tab (41) projecting with respect to the collar (6) in said initial closing position.

Description

Title: "Package for smoking articles"

DESCRIPTION

Field of application

The present invention refers to a package for smoking articles, in particular cigarettes. The invention has practical applications in particular in the tobacco industry.

Prior art

Cigarettes are traditionally packaged in rigid packages, substantially in the shape of a rectangular parallelepiped, in the form of an external container with a lid attached on top along a hinging folding line to allow access to the interior.

Inside the external container there is a wrapper that encloses a bundle of cigarettes, which can be accessed by opening the lid.

Usually also a collar is used. This collar is placed between the internal wrapper and the external container in order to strengthen the package.

In order to conserve the tobacco's fragrance over time there is an ever increasing use of internal wrappers of the hermetic kind.

These hermetic wrappers make it possible to preserve the tobacco's fragrance as they prevent outside access by air and/ or humidity in an acceptible manner.

In order to facilitate the opening of these hermetic wrappers adhesive sealing flaps are used that seal off the access opening of the hermetic wrapper. This access opening is usually formed by a tear line that undoes the seal of the hermetic wrapper. For this reason a closing flap is employed.

In order to facilitate the user operations of opening and closing the flap, the adhesive flap is made to adhere to the collar. In this manner, however, the adhesive panel is unable to adhere perfectly to the hermetic wrapper at the tearing line that forms the access opening to access the cigarettes, which compromises the desired sealing.

EP 2 366 637 discloses a package according to the preamble of claim 1.

The technical problem at the basis of the present invention is that of devising a package for smoking articles, in particular cigarettes, in which the seal of a hermetic wrapper is preserved also when an adhesive flap is used, without compromising the operations of easy opening and closing to access the cigarettes, so that it can be both practical and easy to handle, within the context of a simple and rational constructive solution.

The aim of the present invention is to comply with the above requirements and at the same time overcome the drawbacks described with reference to the prior art.

Summary of the invention

This aim is obtained by a cigarette package in accordance with claim 1 of the present invention.

The dependent claims disclose preferred and particularly advantageous embodiments of the package according to the invention.

Further characteristics and advantages will become clearer from the following detailed description of a preferred but not exclusive embodiment of the present invention, with reference to the enclosed figures, given by way of non-limiting examples.

Brief description of the drawings

Figures 1 and 2 show a hermetic wrapper, depicted as transparent in figure 1 , containing a bundle of cigarettes;

Figure 3 shows the hermetic wrapper of figure 1 with an adhesive flap that closes an access opening for the bundle of cigarettes;

Figures 4 and 5 show two views of the wrapper of figure 3 with a collar wrapped around it;

Figure 6 shows a cigarette package with the flap in the closed position, before it is opened for the first time, in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 7 shows the package of figure 6 with the adhesive flap in the open position;

Figure 8 shows the package of figure 6 with the flap in the closed position after it has been opened for the first time.

Detailed description

In figures 6-8 the reference number 1 indicates a rigid cigarette package as a whole. The cigarette package 1 comprises an external container 2 made of cardboard or stiff paper and having a cuplike shape and a hermetic wrapper 3 housed inside the external container 2. The hermetic wrapper 3 encloses a bundle of cigarettes (visible in figure 7) in the shape of a parallelepiped and it has a cigarette access opening 31 on top and at the front; said access opening is placed centrally and it is closed by a sealing flap 4 which in the illustrated example is of the reusable kind (i.e. of the "open and close" type) and it involves a part of a front wall of the sealed hermetic wrapper 3 and a portion of a top wall of the sealed hermetic wrapper 3. The sealing flap 4 is movable between a position in which it closes the access opening 31 (illustrated in figures 6 and 8) and a position in which it opens the access opening (illustrated in figure 7).

The external container 2 has an open top extremity 21 and it is provided with a lid 5 of a cup-like shape that is hinged onto the external container 2 along a hinge in order to rotate, with respect to the external container 2, between an opening position and a closing position (not illustrated) of the open top extremity 21.

The lid 5, when it is in its closing position, lends a rectangular parallelepiped shape to the external container 2, with a top wall and a bottom wall parallel to and opposite each other, a front wall 22 and a rear wall 23 parallel to and opposite each other, and two lateral walls 24 parallel to and opposite each other. Between the lateral walls 24 and the front wall 22 and rear wall 23 there are four longitudinal edges, whereas between the top and bottom wall and the front, side and lateral walls eight transverse edges are defined.

In the implementation illustrated in figures 6-8 all the edges are lightly rounded.

The package 1 further comprises a rigid collar 6 (made of cardboard or stiff paper), which is folded around the hermetic wrapper 3 to partially cover a top portion of the hermetic wrapper 3 and which can be attached (for instance by means of glue) to the hermetic wrapper 3 itself. The collar 6 partially extends outside of the open top extremity 21 (together with the hermetic wrapper 3 that it partially covers) and engages a corresponding internal surface of the lid 5 when that lid 5 is in the closing position; according to a preferred embodiment, the collar 6 is provided with a pair of barbs 61 that project laterally in order to connect with and engage the lateral walls of the lid 5 in order to keep the lid 5 in the closed position.

The collar 6 comprises a front wall 62, which is internally placed in contact with a front wall 32 of the hermetic wrapper 3 and externally in contact with the front wall 22 of the external container 2; two lateral walls 63 that extend on the sides of the front wall 62 of the collar 6 and that are opposite each other. These lateral walls 63 of the collar 6 are internally in contact with the lateral walls 33 of the hermetic wrapper 3 and externally in contact with the lateral walls 24 of the external container 2.

The reclosable sealing flap 4 that closes the access opening 31 of the hermetic wrapper 3 is placed below the collar 6 (i.e. between the collar and the hermetic wrapper) before the moment of first opening, and it has an internal surface 42 (visible in figure 7) that is made permanently adhesive by means of repositionable adhesive that does not dry out and that adheres in an initial closing position, i.e. before the first opening, to the hermetic wrapper 3 (figure 6) .

The sealing flap 4, of the reclosable type in the example, has a grippable tab 41, which is without any repositionable adhesive on its internal surface. The grippable tab 41 is able to facilitate lifting the sealing flap 4; in other words, in order to lift the sealing flap 4, a user can conveniently grip the tab 41, which is not attached in any way to the hermetic wrapper 3, unlike the rest of the sealing flap 4.

In accordance with the present invention the grippable tab 41 of the adhesive flap 4 is placed between the collar 6 and the hermetic wrapper 3, in such a manner that the grippable tab 41 is held against the hermetic wrapper 3 of the collar 6. The adhesive flap 4 is initially placed between the collar 6 and the hermetic wrapper 3 in an initial closing position, in which the grippable tab 41 is folded at 180° (figure 6) against an external surface of the adhesive flap 4 by means of the collar 6. An end portion of the grippable tab 41 projects from the collar 6 to allow it to be gripped by the user who is performing the first opening of the hermetic wrapper 3.

In practice the adhesive flap 4, before being lifted for the first time by the user who wishes to access the cigarettes contained in the hermetic wrapper, completely adheres to the hermetic wrapper 3 at the access opening 31, ensuring the best possible seal.

After the first opening (figure 7) the sealing flap 4 can be made to adhere to the collar 6 (or rather to the parts of the walls 62a and 62b of the collar 6 that surround the access opening 31) when the sealing flap 4 is returned to the closing position (figure 8), as in known solutions. In other words the reclosable sealing flap 4, before being opened for the first time, adheres entirely to the hermetic wrapper 3. When the flap 4 is lifted, pulling up the grippable tab 41 that projects from the collar 6, the adhesive flap 4 becomes detached from the internal wrapper and makes the access opening 31 accessible to take out the cigarettes that have been conserved perfectly sealed until that moment. Subsequently the adhesive flap 4 can be placed to adhere to , the parts of the walls 62a and 62b of the collar 6 that surround the access opening 31 to close the opening 31.

More particularly, the reclosable adhesive flap 4 is attached in a permanent manner at a rear wall 34 of the hermetic wrapper 3 (figure 5) and the reclosable sealing flap 4 rotates between a closing position and the opening position of the access opening 31 around a hinge located at a transverse edge between a top wall 35 of the hermetic wrapper 3 and the rear wall 34 of the hermetic wrapper 3.

The cigarette access opening 31 of the hermetic wrapper 3 is defined by a U-shaped incision or tear line 36 that extends over a top portion of the wall 32 of the hermetic wrapper 3 and over the whole of the top wall 35 of the hermetic wrapper 3 (without touching the rear wall 34 of the hermetic wrapper 3, in other words stopping at a transverse edge between the top wall 35 of the hermetic wrapper 3 and the rear wall 34 of the hermetic wrapper 3) .

In the illustrated embodiment the collar 6 lacks a rear wall and a top wall and the reclosable adhesive flap 4 is attached in a permanent manner directly to the rear wall 34 of the hermetic wrapper 3. The presence of the repositionable adhesive on the internal surface 42 of the adhesive flap 4 determines the permanent gluing (i.e. which is never separated) of the flap 4 to the rear wall 34 of the hermetic wrapper 3 and to the removable portion 37 of the hermetic wrapper 3 surrounded by the incision 36. Furthermore the presence of the repositionable adhesive on the internal surface 42 of the adhesive flap 4 creates a temporal gluing (i.e. which is separated each time the flap 4 is opened) between the adhesive flap 4 and the walls 61a an 61b of the collar 6 and around the access opening 31 of the hermetic wrapper 3.

In the illustrated embodiment the reclosable adhesive flap 4 is made of a flexible material (usually a plastic material) .

To make accessing the cigarettes easier, the access opening 31 extends up to the edge of the collar 6, which has a U-shaped cut on the front wall 62, to the sides of the U-shaped cut there are the parts of the walls 62a and 62b of the collar 6 that surround the access opening 31. The grippable tab 41 , folded at 180° before the first opening, sticks out of the U-shaped cut of the collar.

According to an alternative embodiment it is possible to make the adhesive flap in such a way that it is easily detachable after the first opening has been carried out, thus losing the possibility of reclosing the access opening 31.

As will be appreciated from the description given above, the package for smoking articles according to the present invention meets the requirements and overcomes the drawbacks described in the introduction of this description with reference to the prior art.

In particular it ensures optimal preservation of the seal until the first opening, conserving practicality in use, great ease in access to the cigarettes and the possibility of reclosing the access opening after each extraction of cigarettes.

Obviously, in order to meet contingent and specific needs a person skilled in the art can apply numerous modifications and variations to the findings disclosed, all of which are contained by the scope of protection of the invention as defined by the following claims.

Claims

1. Package (1) for smoking articles comprising

- a group of smoking articles;

- a hermetic wrapper (3) that encloses the group of smoking articles and that has an access opening (31);

- an adhesive sealing flap (4) that closes the access opening (31) of the hermetic wrapper (3), said flap (4) comprising a grippable tab (41) that does not have an adhesive surface;

- a rigid external container (2) that houses the hermetic wrapper (3) and that has an open extremity, said external container (2) having a hinged lid (5) that can rotate between an open position and a closed position to respectively open and close the open extremity;

- a rigid collar (6) that wraps around the hermetic wrapper, said collar (6) being placed between the hermetic wrapper (3) and the external container (2),

characterised in that the grippable tab (41) of the adhesive flap (4) is placed between the collar (6) and the hermetic wrapper (3), in such a manner that the grippable tab (41) is held against the hermetic wrapper (3) by the collar (6), said adhesive flap (4) initially being placed between the collar (6) and the hermetic wrapper (3) in an initial closing position, wherein in said closing position the grippable tab (41) is folded back at 180° against an external surface of the adhesive flap (4) by means of the collar (6), an end portion of said grippable tab (41) projecting with respect to the collar (6) in said initial closing position.

2. Package (1) for smoking articles according to claim 1 , wherein the adhesive flap (4) is of the reclosable type and comprises a surface (42) that is permanently tacky and that engages the hermetic wrapper (3), wherein after the opening of said access opening (31), said hermetic wrapper (3) can be reclosed by means of the reattachment of said permanently tacky surface to the hermetic wrapper (3) itself, after the first opening of the access opening (31) of the hermetic wrapper (3) said flap (4) can be partially attached also to the collar (6).

3. Package (1) for smoking articles according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the end portion of the grippable tab (41), folded back at 180° and projecting from the collar (6), is directly accessible from the outside when the lid (5) is in the open position.

4. Package (1) according to any one of the previous claims, wherein the sealing flap (4) is attached in a permanent manner to a rear wall (34) of the hermetic wrapper (3).

5. Package ( 1) according to any one of the previous claims, wherein the collar (6) partially projects from the open extremity (21) of the external container (2) and it has a rear wall (62) with a U-shaped cut from which the grippable tab (41) folded back at 180° partially projects, a portion of the adhesive sealing flap (4) being placed between the collar (6) and the hermetic wrapper (3) when it closes the access opening (31) of the hermetic wrapper (3), before opening the access opening (31) of the hermetic wrapper (3) for the first time.

6. Package (1) according to any one of the previous claims, wherein the adhesive sealing flap (4) rotates between a closing position and an open position of the access opening (31) around a hinge that is located at a transverse edge between an upper wall (35) of the hermetic wrapper (3) and a rear wall (34) of the hermetic wrapper (3) .

7. Package (1) according to any one of the previous claims, wherein the access opening (31) of the hermetic wrapper (3) is defined by tear line (36) that defines a removable portion (37) of the hermetic wrapper (3), said removable portion (37) of the hermetic wrapper (3) adhering in a permanent manner to the adhesive flap (4) .

8. Package (1) according to claim 7, wherein said tear line (36) is a closed line so that the portion (37) of the hermetic wrapper (3) that is included in said closed line, adheres in a permanent manner to the adhesive flap (4).

9. Package (1) according to claim 8, wherein the adhesive flap (4) attaches itself to the hermetic wrapper (3) in a removable manner around the weakening line (36) that defines the access opening (31).

10. Package (1) for smoking articles according to claim I, wherein the adhesive flap (4) is of the removable type and wherein after the first opening of the access opening (31) of the hermetic wrapper (3), said flap (4) becomes separated from the hermetic wrapper (3).