Appeal No. 1999-0945
Application 08/786,665
Appellant’s invention relates to a reusable, flexible bag
or envelope for wrapping and packaging articles of various
shapes. As may be seen best in Figures 1 through 5, the bag
(10) is of a generally planar configuration and is comprised
of a sealed envelope (12) filled with small particles (14)
made from a foamed plastic material. The particles are
closely packed within the envelope and the air pressure within
the envelope is adjusted to be lower than atmospheric
pressure. The differential air pressure acting on the bag
causes the particles to be pressed together within the
envelope and to be in a non-free flowing condition that gives
the bag a semi-rigid character. As seen in Figure 1, this
semi-rigid characteristic allows the bag to be held at one end
thereof in a horizontal orientation without any deviation from
its planar shape. However, as seen in Figures 6 through 10,
the bag also retains a degree of flexibility such that it may
be wrapped or molded by hand about an article to be packaged
and will hold that configuration even when removed from the
package. The bag may then be returned essentially to its
original planar configuration by flattening the bag against
any flat surface by hand. Subsequently, the bag may again be
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