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AssigneeAvery Dennison Corporation
InventorsMitchell J. Rackovan, Kushalkumar M. Baid, Gerald G. Popely, Ronald V. Lloyd
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A uniaxially oriented coextruded polymeric in-mold label film includes a uniaxially hot-stretched, annealed, linerless self-wound film having a face layer for printing and a base layer which includes a heat-activatable adhesive. The heat-shrinkability of the film is balanced thickness-wise to minimize curl and allow the film to be printed in conventional label-printing presses. An antistat is included only in the charge for the base layer which includes the heat-activatable adhesive. In the manufacture of labelled blow-molded containers, sheets and labels formed from the film may be handled at high speeds while maintaining accurate registration and dimensional and positional integrity even in the absence of any reinforcing backing, yet the labels perform well on deformable containers such as shampoo bottles.
An in-mold labelling method comprising the steps of coextruding a plurality of at least two charges of film-forming resin, coextruding said charges to thereby form a construction in the form of a multilayer extrudate having a face side and a back side, preselecting said charges to provide a printable face on said face side and a heat-activated adhesive at said back side, uniaxially hot-stretching and annealing said extrudate using hot stretching and annealing means to thereby enhance the dimensional stability of the free-film extrudate, printing the face side of the free-film extrudate and exposing the extrudate to a drying agent to dry the ink, die-cutting the free-film extrudate to form individual labels, and sequentially deploying the labels on a molding surface of a blow mold for bonding onto successive hot workpieces as said workpieces are blown and expanded against said molding surface and against said label whereby contact by said hot workpieces activates said adhesive wherein said extrudate has an annealing temperature above the temperature at which said hot workpieces contact said adhesive to activate it, said step of annealing further including heating at least a majority of the thickness of the extrudate to above the annealing temperature without activating the adhesive to an extent which results in sticking of the adhesive to the annealing means despite said annealing temperature being above the temperature at which said workpieces contact said adhesive to activate it.
An in-mold labelling method comprising the steps of coextruding a plurality of at least three charges of film-forming resin, coextruding said charges to thereby form a construction in the form of a multilayer extrudate having a face layer, a back layer, and a core layer, preselecting said charges to provide a printable face at the face of said face layer and a heat activated adhesive at said back layer, uniaxially hot-stretching and annealing said extrudate using hot stretching and annealing means to thereby enhance the dimensional stability of the free-film extrudate, printing said face of the face layer, die-cutting the free-film extrudate to form individual labels, and sequentially deploying the labels on a molding surface of a blow mold for bonding onto successive hot workpieces as said workpieces are blown and expanded against said molding surface and against said label whereby contact by said hot workpieces activates said adhesive wherein said extrudate has an annealing temperature above the temperature at which said hot workpieces contact said adhesive to active it, said step of annealing further including heating at least a majority of the thickness of the extrudate to above the annealing temperature without activating the adhesive to an extent which results in sticking of the adhesive to the annealing means despite said annealing temperature being above the temperature at which said workpieces contact said adhesive to activate it.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.