Various types of nonwoven fibrous structures have been utilized as disposable substrates. Nonwovens may differ in visual and tactile properties due to the particular production processes used in their manufacture. In addition to functional attributes, such as cleaning ability, consumers of disposable substrates, such as baby wipes, desire properties such as, strength, thickness, flexibility, texture and softness.
Wipes, such as baby wipes, are typically dispensed from packages. Examples of dispensing package configurations include: “flat pack” or non-interleaved configurations in which the wipes are stacked upon one-another and the consumer must separate each wipe from the stack during dispensing; perforated-roll configurations in which the wipes are arranged in a continuous roll with line of weakness which allow the individual wipes to separate from the continuous roll during dispensing; and “pop-up” or interleaved configuration in which the individual wipes are folded with over-lapping sections and stacked so that a portion of each subsequent wipe is pulled through the dispensing orifice of the package when the previous wipe is dispensed.
When dispensed from their package, wipes may or may not dispense efficiently. For example, when dispensed from a pop-up configuration, wipes may dispense efficiently, meaning that each wipe is dispensed individually, and each time a wipe is dispensed, the subsequent wipe is pulled-through the dispensing orifice, and made available for subsequent dispensing. Alternately, wipes may experience problems during dispensing and dispense inefficiently. For example, when dispensed from a pop-up configuration multiple-wipes may be pulled-through the dispensing orifice during the dispensing of an individual wipe. This may result when the wipe being dispensed adheres too strongly to the subsequent wipe, so that the other dispensing forces (e.g. the frictional force between the subsequent wipe and the dispensing orifice) are insufficient to pull the wipes apart.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds