Contact Lens Package Drainage for Single-Touch Transfer

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing contact lens packages face challenges in providing a consistent single-touch lens removal experience, effective solution management, and maintaining lens integrity while avoiding bacterial transfer and ecological impact, without increasing costs or requiring complex mechanisms.

Innovation Solution

A contact lens package design featuring a lid with a cavity that drains packaging solution into the lid upon opening, a lens support that holds the lens out of solution, and a grasping member for easy handling, along with visual and tactile cues for orientation, ensuring a convex lens presentation for single-touch transfer.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Ease of operation

If the package uses a traditional sealed design to maintain lens sterility and solution containment, then lens integrity and sterility are preserved, but the lens cannot be easily transferred with a single touch and solution drainage is problematic

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesingle-touch lens transferVSAvoidlens integrity and sterility

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The package is divided into two separate compartments: a lid cavity that houses the lens and allows drainage, and a base that receives the drained solution. This segmentation enables the lid to be opened for single-touch transfer while the base maintains solution containment and sterility, resolving the contradiction between ease of operation and reliability.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The lid cavity acts as an intermediary chamber that facilitates lens transfer by allowing controlled drainage of solution during opening. This intermediary structure enables the lens to be accessed and transferred with a single touch while maintaining the sterile environment and solution containment through the sealed base compartment.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Ease of operation

If the package allows solution to drain freely upon opening, then lens transfer is facilitated, but uncontrolled spillage and loss of sterile solution occur

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvelens transfer facilitationVSAvoidpackaging solution spillage

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSLoss of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The solution drainage function is extracted from the main package body and directed to a specific receiving location in the base. The lid cavity is designed to channel solution away from the lens area and into designated drainage zones in the base, enabling controlled drainage that facilitates lens transfer while preventing uncontrolled spillage and maintaining solution containment.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

3Stability of the object's composition

If the lens support closely matches the lens shape to hold it securely, then lens stability is improved, but the lens adheres too strongly and cannot be easily removed for transfer

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvelens stability in packageVSAvoidlens removal for transfer

Core Design Contradiction:

Stability of the object's compositionVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The lens support structure is designed with differentiated local properties: it provides secure holding in the closed package state through shape complementarity, but includes drainage apertures and elevated peripheral edges that create localized release zones. When solution drains through these apertures, the lens is selectively released from the support at critical areas, enabling easy removal for transfer while maintaining stability during storage.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

4Loss of substance

If the package volume is reduced to decrease ecological impact and cost, then environmental friendliness and cost are improved, but adequate solution drainage and lens presentation space are compromised

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveecological impact reductionVSAvoidsolution drainage and lens presentation

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of substanceVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The package utilizes vertical dimensionality within the lid cavity to accommodate drainage pathways and lens presentation space. By designing the lid cavity with elevated peripheral edges and integrating drainage apertures at strategic vertical positions, the package achieves adequate solution drainage and lens presentation functionality within a compact volume, reducing ecological impact while maintaining operational ease.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

Applied Scientific Principles

This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.

Function Achieved in This Case

Facilitates consistent single-touch lens transfer with high success rates, maintains lens integrity, and reduces ecological impact while ensuring sterility and intuitive use.

Implementation Method 1

a lens support configured to hold the contact lens substantially out of the packaging solution when the package is in an opened state

Methodology Applied

Scientific EffectBuoyancy: Archimedes' Principle (Buoyancy)

Data Source

PatentUS12414615B2Contact lens packages and methods of opening

Publication Date: 2025.09.16 JOHNSON & JOHNSON VISION CARE INC

AI summary

The present invention relates to improved contact lens packages. The package may be configured such that upon opening the package by a wearer the packaging solution drains away from the contact lens and is substantially recaptured in the lid. Lens packages also may include a lens support that facilitates single touch transfer or a colored region that visually indicates to a wearer where to hold the package for opening.