Bottle to Fit Inside a USPS Priority Mail Box

Abstract

The claims made herein declare a new utility for a bottle of being able to fit inside a United States Postal Service (USPS) “PRIORITY MAIL” box of any type (as advertised), including “Express” and “Flat Rate”. It also establishes the criteria for a bottle that has this particular capability and intention without also including other designs of bottles smaller than these USPS boxes and obviously not designed with the unique intent to fit well inside them.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

The field of invention generally relates to bottles.

BACKGROUND ART

The concept of a bottle is obvious, but hundreds of design and utility patents have been awarded since the early days of the USPTO because bottles of various shapes and sizes and materials may have distinctly different purposes. Design patents have been awarded for bottles with distinct shapes that make those bottles uniquely identifiable to consumers, or with shapes that have the purpose of evoking some sort of emotion from consumers; such is the purpose of design. Utility patents on the other hand have been awarded for bottle designs or concepts that have additional functionality or purpose beyond that of design.

Rather than including reference here to hundreds of patents related to bottles and containers and declaring each of their unique purposes in order to differentiate those purposes from those made by the claims herein, it is important to simply state that as of the date of the submission of this patent application, the claims of this utility patent do not build off of any of them, and that no other patent for a bottle or container has made claims for a particular purpose that has been established by any of the claims herein.

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION

Technical Problem

Many different bottles for containing fluids, gels, or powders exist, but none are designed specifically to fit well inside a United States Postal Service (USPS) “PRIORITY MAIL” shipping box. Note that “PRIORITY MAIL” is a trademarked term belonging to the USPS. Bottles that do exist that are able to fit inside a USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” box generally have internal volumes that are less than %50 of the inner volume of the box which is a very inefficient means of shipping a product. For example, one “Small” USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” “Flat Rate Box” has dimensions (8⅝ inch, 5⅜ inch, 1⅝ inch) which corresponds to an internal volume of 41.74 fl oz (fluid ounces) and typical inexpensive bottles available on the market that would fit inside this box include plastic cylindrical shaped bottles such as the common Boston Round bottle with a maximum diameter of 1½ inch and a height of 8 inch would have only have an internal volume of less than 8 fl oz which results in a packing efficiency (internal volume of bottle/internal volume of shipping box) of less than 20%. As another example: a typical bottle with an oval shaped base might have a Length that is about twice the value of the Width, and if the width is constrained to 1½ inch, a bottle of such dimensions would have a volume of less than about 15 fl oz and a packing efficiency of less than 36%. Certainly that is better, but still not very efficient. The real problem is that there are no bottles in existence that have been designed or developed specifically to have high packing efficiency ratios for shipping individually in USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” boxes, nor is there any good method of identifying which bottles, are available that have the highest packing efficiency.

Another problem with bottles that have not specifically been designed to fit well inside a USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” shipping box is that they tend to slide around on the inside of the box during shipping. Typically this problem is addressed by wrapping the bottle with a packing material or have a packing material stuffed in between the bottle and the inside walls of the box, but this extra packing step has a cost of both time and materials and of course is not very desirable.

Technical Solution

Design a set of bottles with dimensions (H,L,W) that approach the inner dimensions of USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” cardboard shipping boxes. The claims provide a detailed definition of what that means exactly, and a number of detailed descriptions of bottle designs that this patent is intended to cover are presented in the section below entitled “Detailed Examples”.

Advantageous Effects

A bottle with (H,L,W) dimensions that approach the inner dimensions of a USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” cardboard shipping box has a higher packing efficiency ratio (internal volume of bottle/internal volume of shipping box) than a similarly shaped bottle that has dimensions that do not approach the inner dimensions of the shipping box. This of course means that a greater amount of product can be contained and shipped in a single bottle via a single USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” box, resulting in lower overall shipping costs, most dramatically for the consumer when a “PRIORITY MAIL” “Flat Rate Box” is used.

A bottle with (H,L,W) dimensions that approach the inner dimensions of a USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” cardboard shipping box also generally has the effect of eliminating the need for packing material to cushion the bottle during shipping, because in that situation, the bottle tends not to have extra room to shift and slide around inside the box during shipping and therefore is less likely to be broken or damaged when no packing material is used.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The descriptions of the drawings in this section are summaries only; See Description of Claims and Discussion of Examples sections below for details of each of the figures.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a bottle and an alternate bottle fitting inside the box and dimensional constraints of claim 2.

FIGS. 2 and 3 are the same as FIG. 1 except as a parallel projection from the front and side respectively.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a bottle with a pump style closure affixed to the opening, demonstrating how the bottle with closure is intended to fit inside the box and dimensional constraints of claim 2.

FIGS. 5 and 6 are the same as FIG. 4 except as a parallel projection from the front and side respectively.

FIGS. 7, 8, and 9 are x-ray views from the front side of three types of bottle closures.

FIGS. 10, 11, and 12 are cross sectional views of the same bottle closures depicted in FIGS. 7, 8, and 9 respectively, and indicate a distance that a closure requires above the opening of a bottle to be able to fit on a bottle and be placed inside a box.

FIGS. 13-20 are isometric views of substantially rectangular shaped example bottles with one or more rounded or smoothed edges.

FIGS. 21-26 are isometric views of substantially rectangular shaped example bottles with one or more rounded or smoothed edges that also have shoulders that protrude up beside the opening of the bottle to the height of the closure.

FIG. 27 is an isometric view of substantially oval shaped example bottle, designed with an internal volume that is greater than 50% of the volume of the box.

FIG. 28 depicts the same bottle of FIG. 27, but from a different perspective.

FIG. 29 depicts a different bottle, having the same oval shaped profile of the bottle of FIG. 28, and the same perspective, but having a smaller internal volume to juxtapose the designs and demonstrate the importance of the 50% volume ratio that has been specified in claim 2.

FIG. 30 is an isometric view depicting a number rectangular shapes that represent the inner dimensions of various USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” “Flat Rate” box sizes superimposed on top of each other.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

The preferred method of creating a bottle with a design claimed by this patent is by blow molding plastic.

MODE(S) FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

Alternative methods of creating a bottle with a design claimed by this patent include: impact extrusion of aluminium, one of a number of glass and laminated glass bottle manufacturing methods, ceramic molding or spinning, or just about any other conceivable method of manufacturing a bottle.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

The bottles that are developed under the claims of this patent has potential to bring significant cost savings to multiple organizations and the public as the specially designed bottles will improve shipping efficiencies for a number of bottled products, particularly for consumer products for sale on the internet.

DESCRIPTION OF CLAIMS

Claim 1 is intended to establish, for a period of time, an exclusive right to market any bottle with the particular claim of being able to fit inside a USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” “Flat Rate” or “Express” shipping box. Other bottle designs that happen to fit inside one of these boxes, and that do not fit the design constraints of Claim 2 can still be marketed, just not for the specific purpose of being able to fit inside a USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” shipping box of either kind.

Claim 2 is intended to establish, for a period of time, an exclusive right to develop and market a set of bottles that are very near in size to the USPS boxes they are intended to fit inside. It claims a set of bottles, in which each bottle must conform to a very specific set of dimensional constraints where the dimensions are very near to those of the USPS shipping boxes.

Claim 3 simply disseminates the bottles of claim 2 and treats each one as a unique design instead of being required to be part of a set.

Claims 2 and 3 establish bottle designs that have the function of claim 1 but are not necessarily marketed with that function specifically being advertised. Establishing these designs is important to prevent copy-cat designs that would otherwise compete with a bottle of claim 1 by the simple fact that they were not being advertised as having the functional ability stated in claim 1.

Claim 2 sets forth specific design constraints for each bottle in the set. FIGS. 1, 2, and 3 show from different angles a basic rectangular bottle 10 and an alternative oval shaped bottle 13, both with the same opening 22 and the same dimensions (H,L,W) indicated respectively by the numbers (1,2,3) on the figures. The outer dashed rectangular shaped box 11 represents the inner dimensions of a USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” shipping box of any type and of no particular size. It also represents the maximum dimensions (H_max,L_max,W_max) that the bottle (without the closure) may have, indicated on the figures by numbers (4,5,6) respectively. The figures also show a smaller rectangular shaped box 12, with dashed lines, that represents the minimum dimensions (H_min,L_min,W_min) a bottle of claim 2 must have; those minimum dimensions are respectively indicated in the figures as (7,8,9).

FIGS. 4, 5, and 6 show a bottle 10 of claim 2 from different angles, where the bottle has been constructed to have a pump style closure 14 attached to the opening, and where the height (H) of body of the bottle 10 has been reduced by an amount such that both the bottle and the pump closure fitted on top are able to fit entirely within the confines of the USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” box 11. Number 12 identifies the rectangular box shape that represents the minimum dimensions of the bottle where the horizontal dashed rectangular surface indicated by 15 is the top of that box shape if the bottle was not designed for any attachment, but the horizontal dashed rectangular surface indicated by 16 is the top of that box shape when the bottle is designed to be shipped with a closure attached, and where 17 is the distance between planes 15 and 16, and is the distance D_cap that the height component of the minimum dimensions (H_min,L_min,W_min) has been reduced by to accommodate the closure on the top side. A new dimension 23 indicates the total height of the bottle plus the distance from the top of the bottle to the top of the closure (H+D_cap).

FIGS. 7 through 12 show conceptual image of typical closures that a bottle might be designed to fit. FIGS. 7 and 10 show a simple screw on cap style closure from the side, FIGS. 8 and 11 show a representation of the top portion of a screw on pump style cap in it a locked shipping position, and FIGS. 9 and 11 show a screw on disk top cap with the disk in the open position. FIGS. 10, 11, and 12 show just a cross section of those caps and indicate the seal 18, and the distance 17 (D_cap) from the seal to the top of the closure. These figures are shown simply to demonstrate the method for determining D_cap and to aid in determining the maximum distance that one of the minimum dimensions (H_min,L_min,W_min) may be reduced by. Other closures may have different shapes and the seal should be considered the point of the closure that comes in closest contact with the level surface that spans the opening of the bottle.

It is also important to recognize that the closures depicted in FIGS. 7 through 12 are not a definitive list of closure designs, styles, or types of closures that a bottle of claim 2 or 3 may be designed to fit with, they are listed included simply to demonstrate the determination of D_cap among various closure types.

It is important to note that claim 2 limits the distance that one of the minimum dimensions (H_min,L_min,W_min) can be reduced by a maximum of either 2 inches (3.08 cm) or by the value of D_cap, whichever is less. This 2 inch limit has been defined because it is a reasonable distance required by a typical pump style closure, but is a limit set to prevent the extents of the bottle dimensions from being reduced so much by larger bottle closures that those dimensions stray greatly from the dimensions of the USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” box that the bottle was designed to fit inside.

It is also important to note that the 50% value that was defined in claim 2 as the ratio of the internal volume of the bottle with respect to the internal volume of the USPS box, was carefully chosen to be 50% and not greater and not less than that amount after careful review of a variety of bottle shapes that bottles of claim 2 or 3 may have. A number of these bottle shapes are discussed in the Discussion of Examples section below and shown in FIGS. 13 through 29, however FIGS. 28 and 29 are of particular relevance here. Both figures show an oval shaped bottle with equal dimensions (H,L,W) and equal oval shaped profile from the front, however because the rounding of the edges of these bottles are different, the overall internal volumes of these two bottle designs are just different enough that the bottle of FIG. 28 is estimated to have a volume ratio of approximately 58% compared to a ratio of approximately only 38% for the bottle of FIG. 29. This side by side comparison of bottle shapes and internal volumes is important because it reveals how drastically this volume ratio diminishes as the overall shape of the bottle strays dramatically from the overall shape of the USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” box that the bottles of these claims are intended to fit well inside.

FIG. 30 depicts a number of rectangular shapes that represent the inner dimensions of various USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” “Flat Rate” box sizes superimposed on top of each other to provide reference to the number and the sizes of the boxes that should definitely be included in the set of boxes in claim 2 of this patent. The exact sizes of the boxes indicated in this figure are (8⅝ inch, 5⅜ inch, 1⅝ inch) for the USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” “small” “Flat Rate” box depicted by reference 10; (13⅝ inch, 117/8 inch, 3⅜ inch) for a USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” “medium” “Flat Rate” box depicted by reference 18; (11 inches, 8½ inches, 5½ inches) for another “medium” USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” “Flat Rate” box depicted by the dashed lines of reference 19; (23 11/16 inch, 11¾ inch, 3 inch) for a USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” “large” “Flat Rate” box depicted by reference 20; and (12 inch, 12 inch, 5½ inch) for another “large” USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” “Flat Rate” box depicted by the dashed lines of reference 21. In addition to those, the USPS also currently offers a number of additional “PRIORITY MAIL” boxes with the following dimensions which should be included in the set of boxes described in claim 2: (14⅜ inch, 7½ inch, 5⅛ inch); (7 inch, 7 inch, 6 inch); (12 inch, 12 inch, 8 inch); (15¼ inch, 12⅜ inch, 3 inch); (9¼ inch, 6¼ inch, 2 inch); (13⅜ inch, 12⅛ inch, 2¾ inch); and (7 9/16 inch, 5 7/16 inch, ⅝ inch).

DISCUSSION OF EXAMPLES

The claims found in this patent introduce a new concept of functionality for a bottle (claim 1) and a set of constraints for which a variety of bottle shapes can be derived (claim 2). This section provides a discussion of several example bottle shapes and styles that the constraints of claims 2 and 3 are intended to protect.

FIGS. 13 through 28 are examples of specific bottle constructions that would be protected by the design of claims 2 and 3, provided they meet the constraints defined in claim 2.

FIGS. 13 through 20 are bottles that are substantially rectangular in shape and with dimensions that approach the dimensions of a USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” box, and that meet the required constraints defined by claim 2 and have one or more rounded or smoothed edges of various curvatures.

FIGS. 21 through 26 differ from the bottles shown in FIGS. 13 through 20 in that they have one or more shoulders that protrude upwards from the top side of the bottle, beside the opening of the bottle, such that the protrusion adds to the overall internal volume of the bottle. The protrusions shown in these figures have also been extended to a point at least as high as, or higher than the position of the top of the fitted closure, when it is in its locked shipping position, such that the protrusion of the bottle bears some or all of the downward compressional stacking forces of the box onto the bottle; thus preventing some or all of the same forces from acting on the closure.

FIGS. 16, 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26 also demonstrate the concept that the opening is not required to be centered on any side of the bottle. The location of the openings may be placed anywhere on the bottle and its central axis may also be oriented in any direction with respect to the axis of (H,L,W).

FIGS. 24 and 25 show bottles fitted with a hypothetical custom shaped pump style closure, where the dispensing hole is not visible and is on the far end of the pump head.

FIGS. 27 and 28 are different views of the same bottle that represents a substantially oval shaped profile from the front or back side, but that also has a flattened bottom to allow it to stand upright.

The bottle of FIG. 29 is very similar to the bottle of FIGS. 27 and 28, It has the same oval shaped profile and the same dimensions (H,W,L), however the general thickness of the bottle in Figure in 29 is less and therefore the overall volume is less. In fact, the bottle of 29 is not expected to be covered by claim 2 if its internal volume is less than 50% of the volume of the USPS “PRIORITY MAIL” box that it is intended to fit inside. Additional discussion of the significance of FIG. 29 was discussed in the Description of Claims section above.

Claims

1. A bottle, either including or not including a fitted closure attached to the opening, for containing fluids, gels, or powders, with the unique function of being able to fit inside any particular box, from a specific set of boxes that is defined and distinguished as: ‘the complete set of all cardboard boxes having any combination of the United States Postal Service (USPS) marketing terms “PRIORITY MAIL” “Flat Rate Box”, or “Express Box”, printed on any side of the box, and having been advertised and made available to the public for shipping by the USPS’, and where the said bottle (not including closure) has an orthogonal set of external bottle dimensions recognized by a Height, Length, and Width (H,L,W), where the greatest dimensional value is the Height, and the smallest dimensional value is the Width, and where those said external bottle dimensions (H,L,W) are constrained by a set of maximum external bottle dimensions (Hmax,Lmax,Wmax) that also correspond with the inner dimensions of any particular box from the said set of boxes, and where those said external bottle dimensions (H,L,W) are constrained by a set of minimum external bottle dimensions (Hmin,Lmin,Wmin) which are calculated by subtracting ½ inch (1.27 cm) from each dimension in the corresponding said set of maximum external bottle dimensions (Hmax,Lmax,Wmax), and where the value of any one of the dimensions from the said set of minimum external bottle dimensions (Hmin or Lmin or Wmin) ma additionally be reduced by 2 inches (5.08 cm) or the greatest distance between the seal and the top side of an cap or closure (Dcap) that the opening of the said bottle has been designed to be affixed with, whichever is smaller, and where the said bottle has an inner volume (Vbot; measured by filling the bottle with a liquid and then pouring that liquid into a volumetric measuring device) that is at least 50% of the internal volume of the corresponding box (Vbox), where the said internal volume of the said box (Vbox) is calculated by multiplying together each of the dimensions from the set of maximum dimensions of said bottle (calculated with the x equation: Vbox=Hmax×Lmax×Wmax).

2. The design of a set of bottles, for containing fluids, gels, or powders, where each bottle in the said set of bottles (not including closure) has an orthogonal set of external bottle dimensions recognized by a Height, Length, and Width (H,L,W), where the greatest dimensional value is the Height, and the smallest dimensional value is the Width, and where those said external bottle dimensions (H,L,W) are constrained by a set of maximum external bottle dimensions (Hmax,Lmax,Wmax) that also correspond with the inner dimensions of each box in the complete set of cardboard shipping boxes (of various sizes) that has been identified by the United States Postal Service (USPS) “Priority Mail” boxes of any kind, and can be recognized by the particular USPS marketing terms: “Priority Mail”, “Flat Rate Box”, “Express Box”, or any combination of those said terms, and where those said external bottle dimensions (H,L,W) are constrained by a set of minimum external bottle dimensions (Hmin,Lmin,Wmin) which are calculated by subtracting ½ inch (1.27 cm) from each dimension in the corresponding said set of maximum external bottle dimensions (Hmax,Lmax,Wmax), and where the value of any one of the dimensions from the said set of minimum external bottle dimensions (Hmin or Lmin or Wmin) may additionally be reduced by 2 inches (5.08 cm) or the greatest distance between the seal and the top side of any cap or closure (Dcap) that the opening of the said bottle has been designed to be affixed with, whichever is smaller, and where each said bottle has an inner volume (Vbot; measured by filling the bottle with a liquid and then pouring that liquid into a volumetric measuring device) that is at least 50% of the internal volume of the corresponding box (Vbox), where the said internal volume of the said box (Vbox) is calculated by multiplying together each of the dimensions from the set of maximum dimensions of said bottle (calculated with the equation: Vbox=Hmax×Lmax×Wmax).

3. The design of a bottle that matches the description of any one of the bottles in the said set of bottles of claim 2.