GB2322621A - Child-proof dispensing nozzle - Google Patents

Abstract

A dispensing nozzle comprises two coaxial conical screw-threaded members which define all annular passageway therebetween, the inner member 12 being mountable on a container, the outer member 11 being deformable by squeezing, and each member having a pair of lugs 18, 20 which interengage to restrain relative rotation between the members unless the outer member is squeezed to cause the lug pairs to disengage. Once the lug pairs have been disengaged, the outer member may be simultaneously rotated and axially displaced relative to the inner member to open the annular passageway. The lug pairs may be cammed to allow reclosing without squeezing. The inner member may have splines (32, fig 2A) and a bump ring (33, fig 2A) to prevent rotation on and removal from the container to which it is fitted.

Description

Nozzle This invention relates to nozzles, and concerns in particular a variety of nozzle that is relatively child resistant.

It is common practice these days to attempt to ensure that containers of all sorts - and specifically such containers as are for the purpose of holding some material that might conceivably be harmful to human life - cannot, or cannot easily, be opened by small children.

This applies to many types of containers and contents, ranging from the fairly harmless, such as bottles of washing-up liquid, to the rather more dangerous (such as bottles of aspirin and other medicines, and liquids such as glue, methylated spirits and paraffin). One standard way to achieve such an end, and to provide childresistance to a container which has a top, cap or lid closure member that has to be unscrewed to remove it, is to make the cap slightly loose-fitting and deformably squeezable, and to give the cap a pair of 180"-opposed lugs that engage with a corresponding pair of lugs on the body of the container; by suitably shaping and sizing the components it is possible to make the lugs engage in the cap's "normal", unsqueezed, state, so as to prevent relative, "unscrewing", movement between the container and its cap, but to cause the lugs to disengage when the cap is squeezed vigorously enough to deform it and permit them to move past each other and so allow the relative movement necessary to unscrew the cap. Usually the cap must also be squeezed to replace it, but sometimes the lugs are themselves slightly deformable, and if given a suitable camming shape relative to one another permit the cap to be screwed back on without any squeezing.

It will be appreciated that the idea of having a cap that has to be both squeezed and twisted like this before it can be removed is firstly to provide the child with an intellectual problem - the concept of squeezing the cap - that with luck will be beyond it at its present age, and also to give it a physical problem the need to apply co-ordinated force to the cap in a fairly critical manner - which may also be beyond its present manipulative skills.

As noted, this idea of mating pairs of lugs is not unknown. Up to now, however, it has always been the case that one set of lugs is on the container body and the other is on the container cap; there are, though, a number of types of container/cap combination where this is not applicable, and it is with these that the invention is concerned.

Containers are often intended to hold liquids such as washing-up liquids or similar detergent compositions - that are rather thick and sticky, and it is common for such liquids to "dry" in the container's opening - especially where that opening is a spout or nozzle, as is commonly used for detergent bottles, toilet cleanser dispensers and the like - and so plug the spout with an unpleasant lump of paste-like material. Such containers are often fitted with a longish spout or the like that has some "self"-cleaning property - and, more specifically, that is made up of two co-axial conical parts, an apertured inner with a closed free end and a whole outer with an open free end, that together define between them a conical annulus (a ring-like passageway that points, or narrows, towards the open, or tip, end) for the efflux of the liquid in the container. The parts can be moved axially relative one to the other so as to open or close the passageway and thus allow or prevent the egress of liquid from the container (the liquid passes through the apertures in the inner part into the passageway between the parts and thus out of the opening at the tip of the latter). A closure member of this type does not clog easily, even with thick, pastey liquids, because the very way it operates - surfaces pressed together to close it, and then forced apart to open it - militates against, and even obviates, such clogging.

Although some such conical-channel spouts can be operated by the User pulling and pushing the outer spout member axially of the inner, it is more convenient to twist the outer member around the axis and relative to the inner, and to provide internally of the spout a screw portion (or part thereof) so that such a twist is converted into the required axial movement and thus opens (or closes) the spout. However, if the two parts of the spout must be permitted to twist relative to each other then it becomes more difficult to use, with such a spout, a conventional child-resistant closure system of the mating-pairs-of-lugs type, described hereinbefore, for it is no longer easy to arrange that squeezing and twisting/rotation of the container's cap will have any interactive effect with the lugs on the container body.

The present invention seeks to deal with this problem by re-arranging the positioning of the two pairs of lugs such that one is on the (inside of the) outer of the spout's two members while the second is on the (outside of the) inner of the members, the outer member is squeezable (in the manner described hereinbefore) to allow the lug pairs to be disengaged, and the inner member is mounted on the container in such a way that it cannot rotate axially and that it cannot easily be pulled axially therefrom. It will be understood that the inner member becomes in effect a fixed extension of the container itself, while the outer member can twist axially thereof but only when so squeezed that its lugs move out of engagement with the in member's lugs.

In one aspect, therefore, the invention provides a spout, or nozzle, for a container, which spout is of the type made up of two co-axially-fitting conical members, an inner and an outer, that together define between them a conical annular passageway pointing towards the spout tip end and for the efflux of the contents of the container to which the spout is to be attached, which members are screw-mounted one on the other so that they can be twisted relative one to the other to cause concomitant axial movement so as to open or close the passageway and thus allow or prevent the egress of the container S contents, in which spout the inner member is mountable on the container in such a way that it cannot rotate axially and that it cannot easily be pulled axially therefrom, the outer member is deformable by squeezing, and there is a first pair of lugs on the outer member and a second pair of lugs on the inner member, and these lug pairs engage, to restrain relative undoing twisting movement of the two members, unless the outer member is squeezed to cause the lug pairs to be disengaged.

The invention provides a spout, or nozzle, for a container. In general the container may be of any sort and for any type of contents and any variety of purpose, and as might be expected the spout itself can be of any appropriate material or of any suitable shape for use therewith. However, containers for which spouts are appropriate are mainly those for dispensing liquids - a glue (for instance, an acrylic wood glue), a washing-up liquid (a mixture of two or more surfactants and detergents), or a toilet-cleansing liquid (also a surfactant composition, but probably including a bleach). Such containers are bottles (with necks onto which the spout is to be fitted), and while they could be made of glass or some other rigid substance they are most commonly squeezable bottles made of a flexible plastic material, typically low density polyethylene.

The invention's spout is of the type - well-known in principle - made up of inner and outer co-axiallyfitting conical members that define between them a conical annular passageway pointing towards the spout tip. As noted hereinbefore, the inner member normally is apertured in its surface, to allow the container's contents to pass therethrough, and has a closed free end, while the outer has no apertures (its surface forms the seal) but has an open free end; in use, and when open, the liquid in the container passes through the apertures in the inner part into the passageway between the parts and thus out of the opening at the tip of the latter. There is little that need be said about this here, save perhaps that a common such spout is made from a plastic material such as polypropylene, and has base portion which fits onto the container and a tip portion which provides the conical annular passageway. It should be noted, though, that for some purposes, such as dispensing a fairly viscous material such as a glue (an adhesive) in a long strip, or bead, the dimensions of the spout, and especially its open end, can be quite critical. Overall, the spout can have any desired shape, and any appropriate size, but most generally it will be straight, and typically 2 to 3in (about 5-7.5cm) long with a 0.25in (6mm) opening.

It might also be worth remarking that the spout's two conical members can be screw-mounted one on the other in any way suitable for the purpose of letting them be twisted about their common axis - the required axial rotation - relative one to the other to cause concomitant movement along the axis so as to open or close the passageway they define. They might actually be screw-threaded, but it is usually simpler, easier and cheaper either to give each matching cammed projections or to give one (on the outside of the inner) short projections that match slightly longer grooves in the other (on the inside of the outer) - rather like portions of a thread - in its base portion that interact to move the two axially relative one to the other.

Again, this concept is well known in principle, and needs no further comment here.

In the spout of the invention the inner member is mountable (by its base portion) on the container in such a way that it cannot rotate axially and that it cannot easily be pulled axially therefrom, Notionally, this mounting could be by way of pinning, riveting, glueing or welding (or the like), but most conveniently it is attained by utilising a more conventional mechanical arrangement. Thus, to prevent the spout rotating, it is locked by way of splines on the inside surface of the inner member's base portion matching with corresponding splines on the outside of the container (at the point the neck - where the spout is to be attached). And to prevent it being (too easily) pulled off, the inner member's base portion has a circumferential groove around its base portion that matches with a "bump ring" on the outside of the (neck of the) container, or perhaps vice versa, with the groove on the neck and the ring on the inner member (the base portion is flexible enough to be pushed on over the bump ring by a firm force during the manufacturing and filling process, but cannot easily be pulled off by hand by the User).

The outer member of the spout of the invention is deformable by squeezing; this is so that it can be so squeezed to cause the lug pairs to be disengaged. In itself, this is much like the squeezable, lugged caps already in use, and so it needs no additional comment here - save perhaps to note that the dimensions of the spout (and particularly of the outer member's base portion) and the material of which it is made must let it be squeezed sufficiently to provide the desired lugdisengaging effect.

In the spout of the invention the inner and outer spout members each carry a pair of lugs, and these lug pairs engage, to restrain relative undoing twisting movement of the two members, unless the outer member is squeezed to cause the lug pairs to be disengaged. Most conveniently the lugs are simple projections on the facing surfaces of the two members - thus, on the inner surface of the outer member and on the outer surface of the inner member - positioned to engage (or "interfere" with) each other, though they could be more like ears projecting from the very edges of each member's base portion. In addition, the lugs are preferably elongate vane- or rib-like formations, both so that tolerance problems are reduced and also so that they are extensive enough to engage over a significant area and so resist even a quite serious attempt to undo the spout without appropriately squeezing it.

The lugs restrain relative undoing (opening) twisting movement of the two members unless the outer member is squeezed to cause the lug pairs to be disengaged; most preferably they will also restrain doing-up (closing) twisting, as well, although by shaping them to be matchingly cammed, or by making them more flexible in one direction than another, the spout could be closed by twisting without squeezing, the lugs simply riding up over and past each other.

An embodiment of the invention is now described, though by way of illustration only, with reference to the accompanying Drawings in which: Figures lA,B show perspective, part see-through views of respectively the separated outer and inner members of a spout of the invention; Figures 2A,B show part sections of the combined inner and outer members of a spout of the invention mounted on a bottle neck, one Figure in the closed and the other in the open state; and Figures 3A,B show as viewed from below the base parts of the inner and outer members (combined) of a spout of the invention, one Figure in an unsqueezed, the other is a squeezed, state.

As can be seen from Figure 1, the spout of the invention has two main parts - an outer hollow conical member (generally 11) to be fitted axially over - see Figure 2 - an inner hollow conical member (generally 12), in the manner of a sleeve. The outer member 11 has on its inner surface a pair of grooves (heavily-dashed 13n on the near surface, lightly-dashed 13f on the far surface) which constitute the female part of a screw thread, while the inner member 12 has on its outer surface a corresponding pair of short stud-like projections, or "out-dents" (14: only one is shown; it is slanted to fit into the relevant groove), which constitute the male part of a matching screw thread. When the outer member is assembled onto the inner member with the latter's studs 14 located within the former S grooves 13, twisting of the outer relative to the inner about the common axis causes the two to move axially to and fro as they screw or unscrew.

When screwed up they move together, so that the inner surface of the outer member 11 seals against the outer surface of the inner member 12, and when unscrewed they effectively move apart, so that this seal is broken, and a passageway is made between the two surfaces. Into that passageway there may flow through the apertures (15: only one is shown but there are at least two, one on each side, and in principle there may be more) in the upper part of the inner member's surface the contents of the container to which the spout is affixed; these contents may then pass along the passageway and out of the spout through the opening (16) in the free end of the outer member 11.

The base of the outer member 11 is formed as a flexible, squeezable skirt (17), and internally thereof, and opposed thereacross, are two elongate vane-like lugs (18). The base of the inner member 12 has a skirtmatching podium (19) over which the skirt 17 fits loosely, and on the outer surface, and again opposed thereacross, are two slightly elongate vane-like lugs (20). The position and size and shape of the lugs 18 on the outer member 11 and the lugs 20 on the inner member 12 is such that they mechanically interfere with each other, and so nominally prevent twisting of the outer relative to the inner member - see Figure 3.

However, if the skirt 17 of the outer member is squeezed suitably - across the parts not carrying the lugs 18 then its shape changes from being circular to being more elliptical, and the lugs move physically out from the "centre" (they are on the long axis of the ellipse).

Having moved out, and with the designed dimensions of the spout member combination, they no longer overlap/interfere with the inner member's lugs 20, and so the two members can be twisted relative to each other.

The base of the inner member 12 not only has the podium 19, it also has a skirt-like container-top attachment portion (21). As seen in Figure 2, this attachment portion 21 fits tightly over the top - the neck (31) - of the container with which the spout is being used. Moreover, to stop the inner member 12 rotating around the container neck (31) when it is mounted thereon, the inner surface of the podium 19 is splined (32), and these splines match and interlock with corresponding splines (not shown) on the outer surface of the container neck 31. Furthermore, to prevent the inner member 12 too easily pulling off the container neck, the lip area of the attachment portion 21 is provided with a bump ring (33), and this fits tightly into a matching groove (34) around the container neck.

In Figure 2 the outer member's inner screw-threadlike grooves 13 are shown from the side - solid lines for the lengths visible on the "back" (as viewed) surface, dotted lines for the lengths on the cutaway "front" (as viewed) surface; in each case the visible one of the two mating projections 14 is the front one, shown in the front length.

Although one would normally open and close the spout by holding the bottle (and thus the inner spout member) stationary, and then twisting the spout (the outer spout member), in Figures 2A and 2B there is for clarity depicted the reverse; holding the outer spout still and twisting the bottle and inner spout. It will be seen that if, in the "spout open" case of Figure 2A, the inner member 12 is twisted somewhat less than a half turn in the normal "closing" manner - clockwise when viewed from below - the groove 13 will cause the outer member 11 to be pulled down by the projection 14, closing the spout, and reaching a state like that of Figure 2B (an alternative way of seeing this is to imagine the combination of bottle and inner member screwing itself into the outer member). Then, untwisting the member in the normal opening manner anti-clockwise - makes the spout open again as its groove causes the outer member to be pushed up by the projection (the bottle/inner member combination unscrewing itself from the outer member).

The inner member's lugs 20 can be seen in Figure 2.

In Figure 2B, where the spout is closed, the lugs 20 are one just behind (as viewed) the right-hand outer member lug 18 and one just in front of the left-hand lug 18.

They mechanically interfere, preventing relative anti-clockwise (opening) twisting movement of the spout members, until the outer member is squeezed (see Figure 3B), whereupon the interference is removed, and twisting can occur (leaving the "front" inner member lug 20 shown as in Figure 2A).

In Figure 3 is shown - as seen from below - in a somewhat exaggerated manner the squeezing of the outer member's skirt 17 so as to deform it and increase the spacing between the member's lugs 18. By doing this those lugs move out beyond the ends of the inner member's lugs 20, permitting relative rotation of the outer member 11 around the inner member 12.

Claims (8)

Claims

1. A spout for a container, which spout is of the type made up of two co-axially-fitting conical members, an inner and an outer, that together define between them a conical annular passageway pointing towards the spout tip end and for the efflux of the contents of the container to which the spout is to be attached, which members are screw-mounted one on the other so that they can be twisted relative one to the other to cause concomitant axial movement so as to open or close the passageway and thus allow or prevent the egress of the container's contents, in which spout the inner member is mountable on the container in such a way that it cannot rotate axially and that it cannot easily be pulled axially therefrom, the outer member is deformable by squeezing, and there is a first pair of lugs on the outer member and a second pair of lugs on the inner member, and these lug pairs engage, to restrain relative undoing twisting movement of the two members, unless the outer member is squeezed to cause the lug pairs to be disengaged.

2. A spout as claimed in Claim 1, wherein the two conical members are screw-mounted one on the other using short projections on one that match slightly longer grooves in the other and that interact therewith to move the two axially relative one to the other.

3. A spout as claimed in either of the preceding Claims which is mountable on the intended container, in such a way that it cannot rotate axially and that it cannot easily be pulled axially therefrom, by splines on the inside surface of the inner member's base portion matchable with corresponding splines on the outside of the container, and by a bump ring around the inside of that base portion matchable with a circumferential groove on the outside of the container.

4. A spout as claimed in any of the preceding Claims, wherein the lugs are simple projections on the facing surfaces of the two members positioned to engage each other.

5. A spout as claimed in Claims 4, wherein the lugs are elongate vane- or rib-like formations.

6. A spout as claimed in any of the preceding Claims, wherein the lugs restrain both opening and closing twisting.

7. A spout as claimed in Claim 6, wherein by shaping the lugs to be matchingly cammed, or by making them more flexible in one direction than another, the spout is made closable by twisting without squeezing, the lugs simply riding up over and past each other.

8. A spout as claimed in any of the preceding Claims and substantially as described hereinbefore.