Appeal No. 2003-1491 Page 4
Application No. 09/473,834
The teachings of Robertson
Robertson's invention relates to a retainer for a collapsible dispensing tube.
More particularly, his invention discloses a retainer of flexible and expandable material
for attachment to the rolled portion of a collapsible dispensing tube to maintain the tube
in a rolled configuration. In the "DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART" section of the
patent, Robertson states that:
Collapsible dispensing tubes for semi-liquid and gel-like substances are
well known in the prior art and are used for dispensing substances ranging from
toothpaste to adhesives. The walls of these tubes are of sufficient strength to
avoid rupture and are of sufficient flexibility to be collapsible and deformable.
Pressing the walls of these tubes together forces substance from the open end
of the tube. As the substance inside a portion of the tube becomes exhausted,
the end portion of the walls of the tube may be rolled upon itself to assure
maximum dispensing. As increased dispensing is desired, the amount of the
tube that is rolled may be increased.
The strong but flexible material of these tubes does not independently
maintain its rolled or wound configuration. Therefore, before using a tube which
has previously been rolled, the end portion of the tube must be re-rolled to its
previous configuration. To avoid this burdensome and time consuming rerolling,
many inventions have disclosed devices to prevent the unrolling of the end
portion of a tube.
Figure 1 shows three varying sizes, 20, 40, and 60 of the re-usable retaining
device for maintaining a collapsible tube in a rolled condition. Figure 2 shows three
varying sizes 120, 140, and 160 of an alternate configuration of the retaining device.
For illustration purposes, device 40 will be used throughout this discussion to represent
all configurations of the device.
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