There are a variety of types of conventional closures for containers. One type of closure includes a body or base for being attached at an open end or access opening of a container that may contain contents such as a product—the closure body, container, and product together defining a “package”. Products contained within the container may be fluent products, as well as non-fluent products. The closure can be molded or otherwise manufactured from a suitable material (e.g., a thermoplastic material).
With some such packages, a liner or membrane may be further included, with the liner membrane disposed across the interior of the closure body and also attached to the container access opening to seal the product from the ambient environment, and such an arrangement may further provide evidence of tampering to a user of the package. The liner membrane must be breached, pierced, torn, or otherwise separated from the package to expose the container interior. Some liner membranes may be thick, made from a durable material, or may require a seal with a high bonding strength to the container around the access opening in order to maintain desired properties of the product within the package. The inventors of the present invention have found that such liner membranes may require the application of an undesirably high force by the user to effect full or partial removal, breach, or otherwise tearing of the liner membrane.
The inventors of the present invention have determined that it would be advantageous to provide an improved closure body for use with a liner membrane and a container. In particular, the inventors have discovered that this innovative closure body design provides advantages not heretofore contemplated in the packaging industry or suggested by the prior art.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds