Various monofilament dental tapes, as distinguished from multifilaments tapes, have been commercialized which feature reduced shredding, a primary consumer complaint registered for most multifilament dental flosses. These are described and claimed in U.S. Pat. Nos. Re 35,439; 3,800,812; 4,974,615; 5,760,117; 5,433,226; 5,479,952; 5,503,842; 5,755,243; 5,845,652; 5,884,639; 5,918,609; 5,962,572; 5,998,431; 6,003,525; 6,083,208; 6,148,830; 6,161,555; and 6,027,592, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference. These dental tapes generally have serious shortcomings in gentleness, in delivering coatings during flossing and in being handled easily and conveniently during flossing
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) based interproximal devices are described in: U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,209,251; 5,033,488; 5,518,012; 5,911,228; 5,220,932; 4,776,358; 5,718,251; 5,848,600; 5,787,758; and 5,765,576, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference. To date, no commercial versions of these tapes have been coated effectively and cannot be used to deliver active ingredients, interproximally and subgingivally during flossing. Handling during flossing, i.e., wrapping the tape around fingers in preparation for flossing, is difficult. Most fail to provide a gentle tape edge. Many tapes are plagued with serious dimensional inconsistency problems, as well.
See also co-pending patent application Ser. Nos. 60/227,196; 60/227,239; 60/227,240; 60/227,246; 60/227,244; 60/227,255; and 60/227,433; all of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
Coated monofilament dental tapes including: elastomeric, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), bicomponent and other polymeric tapes coated with ingredients at relatively high levels (between about 20% and 120% by weight of the tape) and increasing by between about 50% and 150% the thickness of the tape after coating are described in the various referenced co-pending applications cited herein. Generally, these coatings are applied to both sides of the monofilament tape. These coated monofilament dental tapes feature an enhanced flossing performance attributed primarily to the various saliva soluble coatings applied to the various monofilament dental tapes. Total delivery of a wide range of active ingredients contained in the coatings into the oral cavity during flossing is a key performance feature of these saliva soluble coated monofilament tapes.
Traditionally, most commercial dental tapes are dispensed in about 18-inch increments from a dispenser package that contains from between about 8 yds. and about 200 yds. of tape wound onto a bobbin means. For promotion purposes, samples of dental tapes are generally distributed in single dose packages containing one or two pieces of tape of about 18 inches each. Heretofore, uncoated or lightly waxed dental tape dispenser packages have been manufactured using traditional “yarn” bobbin winding means. That is, high speed bobbin winding machines have been adapted from yarn and thread manufacturing operations to wind uncoated or lightly waxed dental tapes suitable for use in traditional dental tape dispensers utilizing methods commonly known in the art for winding waxed or unwaxed multifilament and monofilament dental flosses.
Coated elastomeric and other forms of monofilament dental tapes such as described in the various co-pending applications and issued U.S. Patents cited above have proven to be most difficult to bobbin wind on cores using traditional bobbin winding equipment and procedures. That is, unlike uncoated or lightly waxed tapes, these rather heavily coated monofilament tapes tend to slip off the bobbin during winding, and generally resist buildup to a bobbin of the required yardage. Further, when traditional heat sources are applied to the tape prior to the tape's arrival on the bobbin to “tack” one wind of the tape to previously wound coated tape “winds”, the winding tension tends to increase dramatically as the diameter of the wound bobbin increases. This increased tension on the wound bobbin, as it builds, coupled with the near melt heating conditions imposed on the coated monofilament tape coating up-stream from the bobbin core tends to deform the bobbins further. Subsequent exposure of bobbins to high temperature and/or high relative humidity tends to displace the coating and/or deform the bobbin.
Typical bobbin deformations resulting from this increased winding tension with improper conditioning and location of the “tacking” energy input and/or from exposure to high temperature and high humidity includes bobbins which can be described as “out-of-round”, “squashed bobbins”, “bulging bobbins”, “bobbins with displaced coatings squeezed out of the bobbins”, etc. Obviously, such misshapen, deformed and coating displaced bobbins do not dispense effectively in the various commercial tape dispensers available, most of which call for commercial bobbins within certain fairly close dimensional specifications including diameter, width, straight sides, etc. The net is, elastomeric monofilament dental tapes, monofilament PTFE dental tapes, bicomponent tapes and other monofilament polymeric monofilament dental tapes with coatings from between about 20% and about 120% by weight of the monofilament tape, when commercially bobbin wound using conventional thread, yarn and/or dental floss/tape bobbin winding processes and equipment, can produce deformed bobbins that are out-of-spec for use with most commercial tape dispensers and/or bobbins that deform and/or release that coating when exposed to high temperature and/or high relative humidity.
In addition, these coated monofilament tape bobbins tend to deform when exposed to elevated temperatures and/or high relative humidity.