T-shirt style bag with registered advertising strip, apparatus and method for making same

Abstract

Plastic shopping bags having upper and lower seams, at least one side gusset, an open bag mouth and upper bag handles has attached promotional ad strips. The strips include a central removable portion and a pair of remainder portions at either end of the strip that are sealed into the upper and lower seams. The ad strips are registered to the upper and lower bag seams so that whole numbers of the coupons, messages or promotions will fall within the removable portion of the strip. Perforations join the removable portion of the strip to the remainder portions. An apparatus for registering the ad strips to plastic shopping bags includes markers on the bags and on the ad strips, sensors to detect the markers, a controller to match the speed of the ad strips to that of the bag blanks, a sealer, bag cutter and either a stacker or a winder.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] This invention relates to the field of plastic bags of the type employed by retailers in packing food items and other merchandise, with particular application to bags that are unsealed or partially sealed along their top edges and include a promotional strip attached in registered form to the bag to maximize the visibility of the promotional material. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] In our prior U.S. Pat. No. 5,882,118 and its divisional method U.S. Pat. No. 6,068,584, we disclosed and claimed the attachment of advertising strips to T-shirt bags and a method for accomplishing such attachments during the course of fabricating such bags from extruded plastic tubing. As the bags disclosed in our prior patent were heat-sealed along both their bottom and top edges, it was possible simultaneously to heat seal the ends of advertising strips to be attached to the bag along both the top and lower edges of such strips. These strips could be disposed either wit...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0023] A roll of plastic strip material is provided. The plastic strip material includes a plurality of plastic strips. Each of the strips has first and second remainder portions located at either end of the strip and a removable portion located between the remainder portions. The plastic strips have promotional material printed upon at least one of an upper surface or a lower surface of the removable portion of the strips and strip reference markers located upon at least one of an upper surface or a lower surface of the strips at the first predetermined interval. An unwind mechanism is provided. The unwind mechanism supports the roll of plastic strip material and modulates the speed at which the plastic strip material is unwound from the roll.

Problems solved by technology

As no method was provided in the prior patents to coordinate the placement of any point on the promotional strip with the top or bottom edges of the bags, at least one coupon would typically be lost as a top or bottom seam of the bag would intersect a portion of the coupon.

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