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US 6,182,352 B2Granted
Method of manufacturing an EAS marker
AssigneeAvery Dennison Corporation
InventorsCharles L. Deschenes, Charles K. Herrmann
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AssigneeAvery Dennison Corporation
InventorsCharles L. Deschenes, Charles K. Herrmann
Estimating the term…
An EAS marker and method of manufacturing same. In a preferred embodiment, the EAS marker comprises a rigid bottom piece of molded plastic having the shape of an open rectangular box. An elongated resonator is disposed in the bottom piece, the resonator being bowed downwardly about its longitudinal axis. A rigid separator of molded plastic is positioned over the open top of the bottom piece, thereby loosely encasing the resonator in the bottom piece. The foregoing bottom piece, resonator and separator are all positioned within the cavity of a rigid top piece of molded plastic having the shape of an inverted open rectangular box, the separator being press-fit against the interior surface of the top wall of the top piece, the bottom piece being press-fit against the interior surfaces of the side walls and end walls of the top piece. The top wall of the top piece is provided with a recessed area in which a biasing element is disposed, the biasing element being retained in the recessed area by the separator. The separator is shaped to include a projection that extends downwardly beyond the remainder of the bottom surface of the separator, the projection being sized and shaped to contact the top of the resonator only within a circular area approximately 0.1 inch in diameter located in approximately the middle of the resonator. The present invention is also directed to an automated method and apparatus for manufacturing the above EAS marker. In a preferred embodiment, each of the top piece, the bottom piece and the separator is manufactured, by rotary extrusion molding, as part of a continuous web, and the various continuous webs are automatically laminated to one another at nips between pairs of rollers.
A method of manufacturing a magnetostrictive EAS marker, said method comprising the steps of:
A method of manufacturing a magnetostrictive EAS marker, said method comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
Of security seals: characterised by the type of seal used
Characterised by the shape of the extruded material at extrusion: flat, e.g. panels
Flat, e.g. panels: flexible, e.g. films
Extrusion nozzles or dies: with rollers
Term ended 2 Jun 2017 (estimated)
USPTO file history isn’t available for this patent, so only indexed dates are shown.
The present invention relates generally to electronic article surveillance (EAS) systems and more particularly to a novel EAS marker for use in an EAS system and to a method of manufacturing said EAS marker.
The problem of protecting articles of merchandise and the like against theft has been the subject of numerous technical approaches. One such type of approach has been to attach to the article an electronic tag or marker that is adapted to trigger an alarm or the like if the article of merchandise is moved beyond a predetermined location and the electronic marker has not been deactivated or removed from the article of merchandise. In the aforementioned type of approach, a transmitting apparatus and a receiving apparatus are typically situated on opposite sides of a passageway leading to an exit of the premises being protected, the transmitting apparatus and the receiving apparatus together defining an interrogation zone. The transmitting apparatus is typically used to transmit over the interrogation zone an interrogation signal that is recognizable by the EAS marker and that causes the EAS marker, if activated, to emit a response signal. The receiving apparatus is typically used to detect the presence of a response signal from an activated EAS marker located within the interrogation zone. The detection by the receiving apparatus of a response signal indicates that the EAS marker has not been removed or deactivated and that the article bearing the marker may not have been paid for or properly checked out. Typically, the detection of such a response signal by the receiving apparatus triggers an alarm.
Several different types of EAS markers have been disclosed in the literature and are in use. In one type of EAS marker, the functional portion of the marker consists of either an antenna and diode or an antenna and capacitors forming a resonant circuit. When placed in an electromagnetic interrogation zone created by the transmitting apparatus, the antenna-diode marker generates harmonics of the interrogation frequency in a receiving antenna in the receiving apparatus; the resonant circuit marker causes an increase in absorption of the transmitted signal so as to reduce the signal in the receiving apparatus. The detection of the harmonic or signal level change indicates the presence of the marker in the interrogation zone. With this type of system, the marker is not amenable to deactivation and, therefore, must be removed from the article of merchandise at the time of purchase so as not to trigger the alarm when the merchandise is removed from the store.
The accompanying drawings, which are hereby incorporated into and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate preferred embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention. In the drawings wherein like reference numerals represent like parts:
FIG. 1 is a bottom front perspective view of a first embodiment of an EAS marker constructed according to the teachings of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a section view of the EAS marker of FIG. 1 taken along line 2—2;
Referring now to FIGS. 1 through 3, there are shown various views of a first embodiment of an EAS marker constructed according to the teachings of the present invention, the EAS marker being represented generally by reference numeral 11.
Marker 11 comprises a top piece 13 and a bottom piece 15. Top piece 13, which is made of a rigid material, which may be, for example, polypropylene or a similar moldable synthetic material, is a generally rectangular, trough-shaped member having a top wall 17, a pair of side walls 19-1 and 19-2, a pair of end walls 21-1 and 21-2 and an open bottom. For reasons to become apparent below, top wall 17 is provided with a recessed area 22, recessed area 22 having a size, shape and depth complementary to that of a biasing magnet of the type used in EAS markers.
Bottom piece 15 (see also FIG. 4), which is also made of a rigid material, which may be, for example, polypropylene or a similar moldable synthetic material, is a generally rectangular, trough-shaped member having a bottom wall 23, a pair of side walls 25-1 and 25-2, a pair of end walls 27-1 and 27-2 and an open top.