Hopper style trucks, rail hopper cars and bulk shipping have commonly supported shipping of the granulated products, for example, grain, specials crops and other bulk items. The material handling between truck, rail cars and bulk ships tends to be costly, causes considerable material to be lost and is time consuming because of the resulting over handling of materials.
Common international trade routes involve use of box containers used to ship grain or seeds or other like materials from one continent or country to another in one direction with the box containers then being loaded with pallet type freight when returned in the other direction. Conventional box type containers however are typically not well suited for handling grain or other small particulate material, resulting in high cost or spoilage due to the awkwardness of transferring, loading or otherwise handling the material. Use of hopper containers are known for improving handling of particulate materials including grain and the like, however when used on a common trade route as noted above, the hopper containers must be returned empty as they are not suitable for receiving pallet type freight. Shipping of empty containers represents a further cost which is desired to be avoided.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds