Collapsible bottle, method of manufacturing a blank for such bottle and beverage-filled bottle dispensing system
OwnerJohn Thomas Riedlinventor
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OwnerJohn Thomas Riedlinventor
Estimating the term…
A double-skinned inflatable bottle blank is manufactured by: (i) stacking two sheets of liquid impermeable, flexible foil material; (ii) blanking the sheets; (iii) bonding the two blanks along joining seams that follow contoured perimeter edges to define a double skinned blank which can be inflated through an inflation location; (iv) additionally bonding the two blanks at in a predetermined grid of seams to provide an upstanding peripheral wall with intersecting, inflatable stiffener structures; (v) folding the double skinned blank; and (vi) selectively bonding together portions of the joined perimeter edge of the double skinned blank to define a double-skinned, inflatable bottle blank with an internal cavity surrounded by a bottom wall, peripheral wall and top wall with a dispensing orifice, the inflatable stiffener structures between the seams providing an exoskeleton about the internal cavity when inflated.
Process of manufacturing a double-skinned inflatable bottle blank which comprises:
Inflatable double-skinned bottle, comprising inner and outer sheets of fluid impermeable flexible foil material which are stacked and bonded along a contoured perimeter of the sheets to provide a double skinned blank, the bonded sheets being folded such that portions of the bonded perimeters are themselves bonded to each other along joining seams thereby to define, in an erected, inflated state of the bottle, (i) a bottom wall for standing the bottle upright, (ii) a peripheral wall upstanding from the bottom wall and surrounding an internal cavity encased by the inner sheet, (iii) a top wall, (iv) a dispensing orifice, in the top wall, for filling and dispensing liquid into and from the internal cavity, and (v) at least one inflation cavity between the inner and the outer sheets in at least the peripheral wall which, when fully inflated and pressurised, provides relative stiffness to the erected bottle, wherein the inner and outer sheets of the double skinned blank are further bonded at a plurality of discrete stiffening seams present in the peripheral wall and arranged in a predetermined grid thereby defining a grid-work of intersecting, inflatable stiffener structures within the inflation cavity which together provide, in an inflated state, a stiffening exo-skeleton about the internal cavity.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.