There is a vast industry in devising new types of packaging for goods. Orange juice containers with their tear-off strips to open the top, for instance -- for many years these bore patent numbers if you looked closely enough.
My colleague Maria Lampert was clearing out her cupboards and came across a cardboard teabag container with a patent number. She brought it in, thinking (correctly) that it would intrigue me.
It says "Twinings Aromatics Earl Grey" and is big enough to contain 50 teabags. On the side it says Patent No: 2359295. Further below it says that Twinings is a registered trademark (spelt American style, by the way) of R. Twining and Company, and below that claims copyright on the artwork of the box (which includes an illustration of Earl Grey himself).
It was a little naughty not to say that it was a British patent, GB 2359295, and there is an American patent as well. Here is the invention's main drawing.
It involves both the tamper-proof seal (the common strip torn away to open it) and what to me seems a familar type of opening. A search report at the end of the patent document lists similar patent documents, and to my surprise it was granted protection. I'm not convinced that protecting the method really gave the company a commercial advantage, though. They could have published details of the box to avoid someone else patenting it and that would have been a lot cheaper.
This is very useful because of its appearance,Is this recyclable?
-Stephanie
Posted by: box to the philippines | 15 May 2009 at 02:50