Side opening flexible bag with longitudinally oriented carrying handle secured to side panels

An easy open substantially rectangular flexible bag of compressed flexible articles, said flexible articles being arranged in a stack and held in compression in a direction substantially parallel to their thickness, said bag of articles comprising:

• (a) a front and a back panel connected to one another by means of a pair of side panels, a bottom panel and a top panel, all of said panels being comprised of flexible material;
• (b) a stack of compressed flexible articles, each of said articles having a pair of opposed, substantially planar surfaces, said articles being oriented so that said substantially planar surfaces are aligned substantially parallel to the side panels of said bag and the outermost peripheral edges of the articles contained within said stack are aligned substantially parallel to the front, back, bottom and top panels of said bag, whereby the entire exposed substantially planar surface of the outermost article at each end of said stack intimately contacts the innermost surface of the adjacent side panel, while only the outermost peripheral edges of said articles contained within said stack contact said front, back, top and bottom panels, said side panels and said front and back panels being subject to tension imposed by said stack of compressed flexible articles, said top and bottom panels being in a substantially untensioned condition;
• (c) a carrying handle overlying said top panel of said bag, said carrying handle having its opposing ends secured to the opposing side panels of said bag;
• and
• (d) an easy open device comprising a substantially continuous line of weakness located partially within one of said tensioned side panels and extending into the uppermost corners of the adjacent front and back panels of said bag, said substantially continuous line of weakness defining a predetermined portion of said side panel to be at least partially separated from the remainder of said side panel without releasing the tension in the remainder of said side panel and without impairing the functionality of said carrying handle, said predetermined portion of said side panel having a total surface area amounting to as much as about 75 percent of the total surface area of one of said substantially planar surfaces of said articles contained in said stack, whereby said predetermined portion of said side panel is at least partially separated from the remainder of said side panel by applying a grasping force to said predetermined portion of said side panel defined by said line of weakness to propagate tears along said line of weakness, whereupon the portion of the stack of articles coinciding with the aperture thus formed in said side panel expands through said aperture in a fan-like array while the portion of said stack coinciding with the remaining tensioned portion of said side panel is retained in a substantially compressed condition.