Sheet materials and in particular, drawer liners and shelf liners have been made utilizing scrim and foamed plastic. One type of shelf liners and drawer liners has been made by providing a foamed plastic coating on an open scrim. The scrim coated with the foamed plastic is porous and has openings, which pass from one surface to the other. To provide a smooth sheet material, a smooth film of a non-foamed plastic is laminated over one surface of the scrim coated with the foamed plastic. The foam plastic coated scrim acts as a non-slip base for the shelf liner or drawer liner. Composite sheet materials of this type are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,707,903, 5,863,845, 5,874,371 and 6,130,174 the contents of each of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
A sheet material formed from a scrim and a laminated smooth surface layer is complex to form since it requires that a layer of smooth material be laminated to the scrim which has first been coated with the foamed plastic.
Another type of shelf liner or drawer liner laminate is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,854,144, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. In the composite structure, a layer of closed foam plastic is laminated to one surface of a scrim and a smooth film laminated to the opposite side of the scrim.
All of the composite sheet materials described above require lamination of a smooth film to a base structure to form a suitable top surface to the composite sheet.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds