Decorated beverage can tabs
AssigneeRexam Beverage Can Company
InventorJeffrey L. Lewis
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A decorated tab for a beverage container has a lift end, a nose end, and central webbing. An enclosed portion of the central webbing has a coating. A symbol is located on the enclosed region which is created by selective removal of the coating by a laser ablation. The symbol has a boundary profile defining a perimeter of the symbol generated by a continuous, uninterrupted vectorized laser dot pattern defining regions of ablated coating. The symbol has an interior portion generated by a plurality of pulsed rasterized laser dots defining further regions of ablated coating.
Claims11
A decorated tab for a beverage container comprising:
- a lift end;
- a nose end for contacting a tear panel on a beverage can lid opposite the lift end;
- a central webbing between the lift end and the nose end, the central webbing comprising a plurality of layers;
- a first layer on the central webbing of a coating;
- a second layer of a reflective metal wherein the first layer is deposited on the second layer;
- and
- a symbol on the central webbing comprising a light diffraction feature produced from a micro slit pattern in the coating directly above with the reflective metal.
A decorated tab for a beverage container comprising:
- a lift end;
- a nose end for contacting a tear panel on a beverage can lid opposite the lift end;
- a central webbing between the lift end and the nose end;
- a coating deposited on a metallic tab stock of the central webbing;
- and
- a light diffraction feature formed on the central webbing formed from a micro slit pattern in the coating directly above the metallic tab stock of the central webbing.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.