Tamper evident cap and container
AssigneesL. Ring, R. Ring, Closure Technologies, Inc., M. Patterson
InventorMichael C. Patterson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A tamper evident cap designed for threading onto a container by conventional bottle capping machinery. The cap includes a first set of spaced-apart lugs for engaging a second set of spaced-apart lugs of a container. The lugs of the cap and the lugs of the container neck are constructed to slide relative to each other upon threading of the cap onto the container while engaging each other to prevent unthreading of the cap from the container. The container neck is especially suited for glass bottles which must be blow molded. The cap includes a first skirt portion and a separable strip, and may include a second skirt portion that remains on the container neck after the separable strip has been removed. The gap between the skirt portions left by removing the separable strip indicates that the cap has been tampered with.
Claims7
A tamper-evident system comprising:
- (a) a container having a neck including:
- a threaded annular portion;
- a set of lugs constructed on the container neck below the threaded annular portion;
- and
- (b) a cap including:
- a top portion;
- a first skirt portion depending from the top portion and having internal threads complementary to the container threads;
- an intermediate separable strip depending from the first skirt portion, a boundary between the first skirt portion and the separable strip defined by a first line of weakness;
- a second skirt portion depending from the separable strip, a boundary between the separable strip and second skirt portion defined by a second line of weakness;
- and
- a set of lugs extending inward on both the separable strip and the second annular skirt portion of the cap,
- the lugs of the cap and the lugs of the container neck constructed to slide relative to each other upon threading of the cap onto the container while engaging each other to prevent unthreading of the cap from the container, the separable strip removable from the cap to leave a tamper-indicating gap between the first and second skirt portions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.