Container having time, day, date or dose indicator

#This invention relates to containers such as those for medicine and pills and, in particular, to an indicator for selectively indicating a time, day, date or dose on the container or cap.

#Persons who must take medicine or pills at various times of the day or on certain dates may find it difficult to remember the last time that a dose or a pill was taken. There are numerous patents on caps with special windows or timers to keep track of the time of the last dose or pill taken. However, all of these techniques require a non-conventional cap that must be purchased. As a result of this extra effort and expense, such time/dosage indicators have not been commercially viable.

#Examples of prior art caps, which are incorporated herein by reference, include U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,766,882; 2,767,680; 5,299,701; 3,960,713; 4,641,759; 3,151,599; 4,345,541; 5,386,795; 4,749,093; 6,003,467; 4,432,300; 4,528,933; and 6,068,149.

#FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an elastic O-ring having time intervals or days printed around its periphery.

#FIG. 2 illustrates a conventional medicine bottle.

#FIG. 3 illustrates the bottle of FIG. 2 having the O-ring of FIG. 1 fitted around its neck and the cap marked with a pointer to point to the hour or day that the last pill was taken.

#FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an elastic O-ring 10 sized to fit snuggly around a conventional plastic cap 12 (FIG. 2) or neck of a conventional plastic container 14 of the type that contain pills or other forms of medicine. O-ring 10 is typically made of rubber, neoprene, or other known elastic material. In one embodiment, the inner dimension of O-ring 10 is 1⅜ inch and the outer dimension is 2 inches.

#FIG. 3 illustrates O-ring 10 fitted around the neck of container 14 so as to not freely rotate. Cap 12 is a conventional child-proof cap that has a ratchet assembly within the cap and requires one to push down on the cap in order to engage the ratchet and rotate the cap off of the neck of container 14. Examples of a ratcheted cap are described in the prior art identified above and need not be described in detail.

#When the cap is not pushed down, but is rotated, the ratchet and pawl assembly does not engage, and the cap rides over the ridges of the ratchet and sets in discrete positions as the cap is rotated. The time/date indicia on O-ring 10 is spaced so that a pointer 16 marked on cap 12 aligns with each successive indicia as the cap is rotated without pressing down on the cap. Pointer 16 may be either printed on the cap or just marked with a marker or tape by the user. After the user has taken a pill at, for example, 5:00 o'clock, the user replaces the cap and rotates the cap so that pointer 16 aligns with the time of 5:00 o'clock marked on O-ring 10. The markings on the O-ring 10 may also correspond to days of the week or days of the month or other intervals. In this manner, the user knows when the last pill has been taken. In another embodiment the pointer 16 would be replaced with pointer 18 as shown in FIG. 4 and the o-ring 10 would be snug but loose enough to be rotated in order to align the desired indicia with pointer 18.