Bottle Cap

Abstract

A bottle cap that is easy to remove, particularly for consumers with arthritis, disabilities, or other weakened hands. The bottle cap can be removed from the bottle either by twisting off or through use of a bottle cap remover. The bottle cap has a generally cylindrical interior that includes internal screw threads that screw the cap onto matching screw threads on external portions of the neck of the bottle. A thumb or finger push tab member is formed on the exterior of the bottle cap, and extending outward from the cylindrical portion of the cap. The finger push tab member is employed to increase the amount of torque or rotational force, thereby facilitating removal of the bottle cap. The bottle cap also includes flanges for attachment of a lever-type bottle cap remover, each including an attachment point for the bottle cap remover.

Description

REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is related to and claims priority and a filing date of the Provisional Application bearing Application Ser. No. 61,988,337 and a filing date of May 5, 2014.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to closures specifically bottle and jar caps. More specifically, the present invention is a cap for a bottle that is easy to remove, particularly for people with disabilities, which bottle cap includes a thumb or finger push tab member and a bottle cap remover attachment point and can be removed from the bottle either by twisting off or by using a bottle cap remover.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Screw-on bottle caps are ubiquitous in society today, and are used as closures on all types of vessels including soda bottles, juice, wine, spirits, and water bottles, jars for mayonnaise or jam or the like, liquid laundry detergent bottles and a wide range of bottles and jars for other liquid or even solid contents. Such bottle caps are often molded from plastic, but may also be formed from aluminum or other metals. Typically, such screw-on bottle caps mate with male screw threads molded or formed into the exterior of the neck of the bottle itself, and have mating female screw threads molded or formed into the interior of the bottle cap. In the bottling stage, and after the bottle has been filled with its contents, the bottle cap is screwed onto the bottle, and is often done mechanically on an assembly line. The bottle top must be screwed on tightly enough to sufficiently seal the contents inside the bottle, maintain sterility where necessary, and retain the carbonation of carbonated drinks On the other hand, the bottle cap cannot be screwed on so tightly as to prevent the consumer from opening the bottle. Moreover, many modern bottle caps include tamper protection where the bottom of cap is connected by small bridges to a connected ring which ring remains on the neck of the bottle and which bridges are broken by the consumer when the cap is unscrewed and removed.

For some people, opening screw-on bottle caps can be problematic. This is particularly true for arthritic patients and people with other weakness in their hands such as young children, the elderly, people with disabilities, etc. For these people, generating the amount of torque necessary to break the tamper-proof seal, and unscrew the bottle cap to remove it from the bottle or jar may be difficult.

In addition, bottles that contain contents that are pressurized tend to be more difficult to open than bottles that do not contain pressurized contents. For examples, bottles containing soda or other carbonated beverages, or sparkling wines or the like, have internal gas pressures that exceed atmospheric pressure. Moreover, if a bottle or jar is stored in warm conditions, the internal temperature of the content of the bottle may increase the internal pressure of the bottle. Internal pressure in the bottle or heat may cause bottles to deform and expand. These bottles may require more force to open than usual.

There are a wide variety of separate prior-art tools that are on the market to assist arthritic or otherwise weakened patients in opening bottles closed with screw-on caps. These prior-art devices include nutcracker-type devices to grip the bottle cap, rubberized sleeves that surround the bottle cap to aid in the user's grip, under-counter bottle openers, and many, many other such devices that assist a consumer to remove the lid from a bottle or jar. A disadvantage of these prior art separate devices is that they are not always available to the consumer at the moment that the consumer is attempting to open the bottle. Furthermore, they tend to be more complicated than the present invention.

It would be a distinct advantage to provide a bottle cap that is easy to manufacture, provides the same type of product protection and tamper-proof protection as existing bottle caps, yet is much easier to open, particularly for those with arthritis, weak hands or other disabilities. Specifically, it would be an advantage to provide a bottle cap that includes a finger push tab member to assist the consumer in applying sufficient torque to the bottle cap to unscrew it from the bottle or jar for removal. Another advantage of the present invention is its ready availability—no separate device needs to be located at the time of that the bottle is to be opened. Furthermore, the bottle cap of the present invention is available immediately upon purchase of the bottle. As such, no separate device is needed and the bottle is openable immediately. The invention of the present device should be usable with all types of threaded caps. It would also be advantageous to provide a bottle cap that can be removed from the bottle either by twisting off or by employing a bottle cap remover. Such are the objectives and advantages of the present invention.

Other objectives, advantages and novel features, and further scope of applicability of the present invention will be set forth in the detailed description to follow, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is a bottle cap that is easier to remove than typical prior art bottle caps, particularly for consumers with arthritis, disabilities, or other weakened hands. The bottle cap of the present invention is easy to remove from a bottle, and can be removed either by twisting off or through use of a bottle cap remover. The present invention bottle cap has a generally cylindrical interior that includes internal screw threads that screw the cap onto matching screw threads on external portions of the neck of the bottle. A thumb or finger push tab member is formed on the exterior of the bottle cap, and extending outward from the cylindrical portion of the cap. The finger push tab member may be formed in tear-drop shape, in “comma” shape, truncated triangle shape, or other configurations. The finger push tab member is employed by the consumer to increase the amount of torque or rotational force, thereby facilitating removal of the bottle cap. The bottle cap of the present invention also includes flanges for attachment of a lever-type bottle cap remover, each including an attachment point for the bottle cap remover.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a better understanding of the present invention, reference is made to the following description of an exemplary embodiment thereof, considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a front perspective view of the present invention bottle cap and showing the finger push tab member and bottle cap remover attachment points.

FIG. 2 is a side view of the present invention bottle cap and showing the finger push tab member and bottle cap remover attachment points.

FIG. 3 is a front perspective view of the present invention bottle cap and showing the finger push tab member and the bottle cap remover attachment points.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Looking at the Figures, the bottle cap 10 of the present invention is depicted. The bottle cap of the present invention includes a finger push tab member 12 to assist users, particularly those with arthritis or otherwise weakened hands to remove the bottle cap. The bottle cap of the present invention is also useful to assist users to open bottles that have internal gas pressure due to carbonation or heat. The bottle cap of the present invention is formed from plastic, aluminum or other metal, or other such suitable rigid material. As is known in the prior art, the interior of the present invention bottle cap has a generally cylindrical interior having an open bottom and sealed top and includes interior female screw threads that are employed to screwably attach the bottle cap to the male screw threads formed into the neck of the bottle.

Positioned vertically on the exterior side wall of the bottle cap are flanges 14, which flanges go around the entire side wall of the cap and extend from the top surface of the bottle vertically downward toward the bridges. The flanges are useful to increase the friction between the fingers of the consumer and the bottle cap, thereby facilitating opening of the bottle. More importantly, the flanges on the side wall of the bottle cap serve the function of providing an attachment point 16 for a conventional bottle cap opener. (A bottle cap opener is a specialized lever that uses a point on the bottle cap as a fulcrum on which to pivot. It is typically a piece of metal with a rectangular or rounded opening in one end and a solid handle large enough to be gripped by the fingers of the user. The opening contains a lip that is placed under the edge of the bottle cap, pulling off the cap when upward force to handle end of the opening. These are commonly called church keys.) As applied to the present invention, the lip of the church key or bottle opener is placed under one of the extending flanges, which flange acts as an attachment point for the opening, and thereby improved the contact between bottle cap and bottle opener. As such, the utility of the bottle cap opener is improved.

Looking more closely at the flanges, the flanges are formed into the bottle cap and extend outward from the side wall. As seen best in FIG. 1, the flanges in this shown embodiment take the shape of a truncated triangle, the truncation at the top of the triangle where the flanges connect to the side wall of the cap. Describing the flanges more completely, each flange has a two surfaces that extends outward from the side wall of the bottle cap, and has a top edge where it connects to the bottle cap, the top edge being horizontal, i.e. parallel to the top surface of cap. Connected to the outward extending surfaces, is a forward face, the forward face being concentric with the bottle cap. The walls of the flange flare outward, thereby forming the shape of a truncated triangle, the truncation at the top, and the wider leg of the triangle at the bottom. The wider leg (i.e. the bottom surface of the flange) presents the attachment point 16 to which the lip of the church key bottle opener may be attached. To remove the cap using the church key bottle opener, the lip of the bottle opener is attached to the attachment point of the flange and upward force is applied.

Extending outward from the exterior side wall of the cap is a finger push tab member 12 of the bottle cap which is formed integrally with the cap and preferably formed from the same material as the cap. The finger push tab member may configured in a tear-drop like shape which tapers to a rounded point. A second embodiment includes a finger push tab member having a “comma” shape. It should be noted that the tear-drop and “comma” shapes are merely exemplary, and the exact shape of the extension is not critical to the functionality of the present invention. As such, the finger extension portion could be formed in other shapes such as a straight flange, truncated triangle as shown in the figures, or the like, so long as it extends outward from the cylindrical bottle cap.

The finger push tab member 12 is utilized by the consumer to assist in opening the bottle. This assist is particularly valuable for use by those with arthritis, or by elderly consumers or young children, or any other consumer with weakened hands. It is also valuable when the bottle or jar has internal gas pressure due to carbonation or heat, thereby increasing the amount of rotational force required for opening. By exerting force, either by pushing or pulling on the finger extension portion of the bottle cap, the amount of torque or rotational force on the bottle cap is increased, thereby facilitating breakage of the tamper-evident bridges and the cap's removal from the bottle. The finger push tab of the present invention is further utilitarian in making closure of the bottle or jar easier when the cap is screwed back on.

The bottle cap with finger push tab member of the present invention can be used on a wide variety of bottles or jars. The present invention bottle cap is well suited for use on bottles having wide neck openings such as laundry detergent bottles, and jars for mayonnaise or other such contents. The bottle cap of the present invention is particularly well suited for glass bottles containing beverages, such as beer bottles.

As disclosed, the bottle cap of the present invention can be removed from the bottle or jar in one of two ways. First, the bottle cap may be twisted off, thereby unscrewing it from the bottle. Due to the inclusion of the finger push tab member, the twisting removal is rendered much easier due to the increased torque that is applied. Moreover, the bottle cap of the present invention can be removed from the bottle by simply employing a conventional pop-top lever-type bottle opener of the type commonly known as a church key. The lip of the bottle opener is positioned under one of the flanges of the bottle cap, and upward force is applied, thereby popping off the top.

The foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the principles and preferred embodiment of the invention. Furthermore, since numerous changes and modifications will readily occur to one skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the invention to the exact construction, operation and embodiment shown and described, and accordingly all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the invention.

Claims

1. A bottle cap comprising:

a cylindrical internal surface and an external surface, said internal surface having screw threads for attaching to a bottle;

a finger push tab member extending outward from said external surface, said finger push tab member being employed by a consumer to increase the amount of rotational torque exerted on the bottle cap, thereby facilitating its removal from the bottle; and

at least one flange, said flange extending outward from the exterior surface of the bottle cap, the flange having an attachment point for positioning a lever-type bottle opener, thereby facilitation removal of the bottle cap from the bottle;

whereby said bottle cap can be removed from the bottle either by employment of a lever-type bottle opener, or by twisting off.