Over the past century a wide variety of proposals have been made for knock down crates and containers usable to confine and protect goods and merchandise during transit. Initially such containers were designed for use in shipping a particular item in smaller bulk quantity. Many of these were reusable and returnable to the sender in knockdown condition. In recent years it has become common practice to construct cargo containers to hold quantities as large or substantially larger than railway cars and suitable for shipment by rail, ship and heavy duty truck trailers. Special equipment has been developed for transferring such containers between ship, railway car and trailer. Such containers are heavy, efficient and convenient where the contents are in transit between a single consignee and a single consignor. However, major quantities of cargo move in lots occupying only a minor portion of modern bulk cargo containers. Such shipment present serious problems involving security, handling, damage, loss by theft and costly labor problems, which problems are not avoided by shipping cargo containers heretofore proposed, representative ones of which are disclosed in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 525,157; 1,163,696; 2,457,842; 2,775,360; 3,040,925; 3,107,024; 3,182,846; 3,221,921; 3,306,487; 3,382,998; 3,386,605; 3,401,814; 3,760,970; 3,883,026; 3,966,285; 4,171,059; 4,422,558; 4,452,366; 4,506,789. No one of these prior constructions evidences any suggestion for a container shipping system wherein a smaller knock down tamper proof containers are specially designed for convenient and efficient stowage and shipment of the goods of individual consignees in a conventional large capacity cargo container.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds