Labels, containers, system and method for providing reagents

Abstract

The invention relates to systems and methods for marketing and using products such as liquid materials, especially liquid reagents for use in microbiological and cellular biological laboratory settings include the use of unique color and simple numeric or alphanumeric identifiers to quickly and easily identify any product from a catalog list of products. Methods of marketing, advertising and producing such products are also disclosed. Particular embodiments include products, product packaging and product labeling. The invention also relates to collars and sleeves for containers, flexible stabilizers for containers, as well as related methods of use.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001]This application claims benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 704,866, filed Aug. 1, 2005, and U.S. application Ser. No. 11 / 497,093, filed Aug. 1, 2006, and U.S. application Ser. No. 12 / 135,988, filed Jun. 9, 2008, the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT [0002]N / ABACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003]In the fields of molecular and cellular biology, particularly in a laboratory setting, it is of vital importance that the correct reagents and media are used in every instance, including use on the bench or in a sterile hood, and when selecting, ordering or re-ordering supplies. There are various factors that exist in a laboratory setting that can make this more difficult and less efficient. For example, bottles of media and sera are often stored in refrigerators where condensation may cause labels to be hard to read, and the important informati...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0044]In use, as shown in FIG. 24B, a desired amount of the contents of a bottle are transferred from the bottle into the dispenser. Transfer of the liquid may be active, by providing a bottle with flexible sides so that liquid can be squeezed into the dispenser, or liquid may be transferred from the container into the dispenser by gravity flow. In certain embodiments, a bottle or dispenser includes a trigger mechanism, such that a user activates a trigger in order to induce flow of liquid into the dispenser, and releases the trigger to stop the flow. In certain embodiments, the dispenser includes a valve, or a one-way valve effective to prevent backflow of liquid from the dispenser into the bottle, and to prevent additional flow of liquid from the container into the dispenser after the desired level is reached.

[0045]The bottle with attached dispenser may then be used to dispense a desired, measured amount of liquid media or other product. In certain embodiments, the dispenser may be used for a repeated process such that a desired amount of liquid can be dispensed multiple times as in feeding liquid media to a plurality of cultures. A dispenser may thus replace the need for pipetting in certain embodiments.

Problems solved by technology

There are various factors that exist in a laboratory setting that can make this more difficult and less efficient.

For example, bottles of media and sera are often stored in refrigerators where condensation may cause labels to be hard to read, and the important information may be small print that is easily obscured by moisture, user writing to label and identify additions, or other information about a particular bottle such as the user's initials, date opened, etc.

Another difficulty is the manual dexterity required for sterile transfer of materials from a reagent or media bottle.

Prior to the present disclosure, it has been difficult to quickly identify with assurance the contents of a particular bottle.

This concern is of particular importance in the context of cell culture media bottles where mixing culture media types or solutions can have disastrous effects on research projects, greatly increasing the cost and time associated.

Although conventional labels often include the name of the product family in large type on the front of the bottle, it may be difficult to distinguish exactly what product is in the bottle, particularly if there are user annotations covering part of the label.

Although a particular instance of wasted time might be small, they can collectively consume excessive amounts of time when one considers that within a single laboratory these actions may take place tens or even hundreds of times within a day.

In addition to difficulty in identifying the contents of a bottle, conventional bottles typically do not offer both storage efficiency and versatility.

As all storage devices, refrigerators, incubators, freezers, shakers, stirrers, hoods, culture rooms, etc., do not have the same layout and dimensions, adaptability and versatility in the storage capabilities of bottles can be a significant problem.

This bottle shape results in inefficient use of space when stored, due to dead space between bottles and the inability to stably stack bottles on top of each other.

Although these bottles can more efficiently abut other bottles both from the side and the front, they cannot be stored on a side and stacked on top of one another without the contents of the bottle coming in contact with the lid.

Content contact with the lid can potentially cause leakage or contamination resulting in increased costs, lost research time, and a lack of supplies.

Another disadvantage is that when the bottles are stored side by side in rows, only the labels of the front row can be seen without lifting the bottles to reveal a label.

Furthermore, the caps are not easily accessible and the tops of the caps cannot be seen without lifting the bottle or looking directly down from above, which is not possible in many storage situations such as in a refrigerator.

As all storage devices, refrigerators, incubators, freezers, shakers, stirrers, hoods, culture rooms, etc., do not have the same layout and dimensions, adaptability and versatility in the storage capabilities of bottles can be a major source of inefficiency.

Prior to this disclosure, there have been few or no attempts to solve these problems, especially in the fields of microbiology and cellular biology where conventional round and square media bottles are almost universally used.

This does not teach, however, a system of providing solid or liquid products that are appropriate or useful for microbiological or other research media, particularly to be used with sterile technique, and utilizing color coded covers or caps, corresponding color coded labels, or specially designed bottles to facilitate ease of identification of the contents of a bottle during storage, use, and re-supplying.

As one skilled in the art would recognize, if any one of lengths A, C, or I is small, with respect to one or both of the other lengths, the container may be unstable when placed on one or more panel.

Such numbers are difficult to remember, are often displayed on a product in small type that may be difficult to read, and also increase the likelihood that an error may occur in using such a number to order or re-order product from a catalog.

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