EP0537662A1 - Endless or roll-form-bagage tag for mechanical printing - Google Patents

Abstract

A strip-type luggage tag (1) in endless or roll form for machine inscription comprises a tag part (6), to be fastened to a piece of luggage, and a check section (7). The check section (7) comprises a tear-off part (4''), which can be detached from the tag part (6) along a transversely running parting line (8). Both the tag part (6) and the tear-off part (4'') have on the rear side an adhesive zone (10) which is coated with contact adhesive and extends on both sides of the parting line (8). The adhesive zone (10) is covered by a one-part, releasable sheet section (5), which is for example coated with silicone, and the width of which corresponds to that of the upper sheet (4). The sheet section (5) has in the region of the adhesive zone assigned to the tear-off part (4'') a subregion (11) which is of a non-releasable design and permits a firm connection. This subregion, made unreleasable for example by corona treatment, forms a bonding bridge as a firm connection between the sheet section (5) and the tear-off part (4''), the two of which together can be stuck into a flight ticket after exposing a part of the adhesive zone (10) as check section (9) for the identification of a piece of luggage. <IMAGE>

Description

The invention relates to a luggage strip trailer in endless or roll form for machine lettering comprising a trailer part to be fastened to a piece of luggage and a control section in accordance with the preamble of patent claim 1.

Baggage tags are used to identify items of luggage in passenger transport, in particular in international air traffic, which essentially consist of two parts, namely a trailer part to be attached to the item of luggage in question and a control section which is handed over to the owner of the item of luggage.

The control section is usually designed as a tear-off part that can be separated along a transverse dividing line or perforation. Both the control section and the trailer part are coated with a pressure sensitive adhesive on the back. In order to keep it ready for use, the pressure-sensitive adhesive layer must first be passed through a web coated with a release agent, e.g. a silicone paper. As a result, the control section can be stuck onto or into a transport ticket after the separation by means of the adhesive layer. After the adhesive layer has been exposed, the trailer part to be fastened to the piece of luggage is placed around a handle of the relevant piece of luggage in a loop and, as it were, glued to itself.

The known luggage tag trailers have the disadvantage that the protective papers coated with release agent have to be removed and disposed of in order to activate the pressure sensitive adhesive. Because this work is usually under time pressure, especially when checking in at the airline counter , it cannot be ruled out that such papers will fall to the floor and, due to their smooth surface, cause an increased risk of accidents by slipping.

Another disadvantage is that if one part of the luggage tag trailer is attached to the luggage as a loop, the surface provided with the pressure-sensitive adhesive is often hastily and imprecisely connected to the counter surface, so that open areas of the adhesive layer remain in particular at the edges, which are not covered by a corresponding counter surface. There is therefore a risk that these areas will stick to other items of luggage. The upper web of the trailer part, which is made of tear-resistant material, can separate from the lower web coated with release agent, which alone is not able to ensure the tear resistance, so that the trailer can detach itself from the luggage.

Such baggage tag trailers are usually produced in groups alongside one another in wide webs and only later cut into narrow webs with one tag each, which are made available to the user in a continuous or roll form. There, the tags are then labeled from the stack or from the roll by printers, thermal printers, and only then separated into individual lengths. Since, as a result of the production in wide webs, the adhesive coating is usually applied continuously and then extends to the longitudinal edges of the trailer, there is a risk when labeling in the printer that the pressure sensitive adhesive softens as a result of the heat in the printer and small amounts escape laterally, which then leads to the Soiling the printer. In order to prevent this, it is necessary to "weed" the wide webs before cutting, ie to punch narrow strips out of the top web on both sides of the later cut edges, without however damaging the bottom web. This in addition the work to be done is complex and increases the cost of the bulk baggage tag trailer.

In order to avoid the disposal of silicone-coated parts as waste, in a known luggage tag, in which the control section is designed as a tear-off part that can be separated along a perforation line, adhesive layers are arranged both below the tear-off part and below the trailer part, which layers are covered by a silicone-coated cover strip (DE-U 91 10 080). The silicone layers leave uncoated transverse edge strips on the cover strip, so that after the control section has been separated from the trailer part, both the tear-off part and the trailer part have silicone-coated parts of the cover strip connected to them; To expose the adhesive surfaces, these parts are folded over around the edges between the silicone and the non-coated surfaces.

The separation-effective formation of webs for the protection of pressure-sensitive adhesive coatings is usually achieved by a silicone coating which forms a closed surface in which an adhesive cannot anchor itself. For reasons of environmental protection, a silicone coating is applied today in an aqueous solution, which means that very long drying sections are required during production. Interruptions in the silicone coating are not only difficult to achieve in this way, but it is also difficult to exactly assign interrupted areas of the silicone-coated sheet to the corresponding areas of the material sheet, that is to say the adhesive zones, when the sheets are brought together.

Based on the consideration that with a luggage tag both the manufacturing process and the user-side handling as a complex system in Connection to the product can be seen, the invention has for its object to design a luggage tag of the type mentioned in such a way that no release agent-coated parts are required for disposal, that both simplifies the manufacture of the individual tags, especially the easy application of a label on the Trailer part, the control section and possibly other parts, and finally the handling of the luggage tag at the counter of the airline can be simplified.

According to the invention, this object is achieved by the features specified in the characterizing part of patent claim 1.

To produce the luggage tag, only one material web is required, which consist of commercially available or laminated, correspondingly tear-resistant material and can be printed in a continuous process that can be carried out on a printing press and can be applied with adhesive. All printing processes are on the same side of the web; Subsequent or additional further treatment, in particular complex, two-way lamination or folding are unnecessary. It is only necessary to subsequently feed the protective cover in the form of individual web sections in the region of the adhesive zones and to combine them with the material web with which it can then be cut. The feeding of the lower web is thus reduced to the dispensing of correspondingly long sections of a web with a release coating on the adhesive zones of the upper web, which of course must then be designed to be correspondingly tear-resistant.

If, as is also possible according to the invention, the adhesive layer on the upper web only in the inner area below Release of narrow strips is applied along the longitudinal edges, no adhesive can escape laterally when the bottom web is the same width, even when heated, so that weeding is not necessary. Since narrow strips are kept glue-free along the longitudinal edges, there is also no danger if the two areas of the trailer to be placed on top of each other on the piece of luggage should not coincide exactly with one another when work is inexact. As a result of the same width of the upper and lower web, the luggage stripe trailer has a uniform thickness over its entire width, so that no data loss occurs at the edges when labeled using a thermal printer.

A method of manufacturing a luggage tag according to the invention is set out in claim 7.

Against this background, the feature of special importance is first of all to coat the protective sheet continuously in a separating manner and then to subject it in certain areas to a so-called corona treatment in order to abolish the separating effectiveness in these areas.

In such a corona treatment, which is known per se in the finishing and printing industry, the web to be treated is carried out between two electrodes, one of which is designed as a carrier roller. In the discharge gap formed between these two electrodes, high electrical outputs with fine discharge sparks are deposited very evenly and gently on the web surface. With such a treatment, which can be incorporated into the production process of the luggage tags even at high throughput speeds, it is possible to treat strip-like areas in a continuously coated release liner in such a way that the release effectiveness is canceled at least until the lanes are brought together.

Overall, the invention allows an economical and therefore inexpensive production of baggage tag trailers according to the regulations of the airlines, since both the pressure sensitive adhesive coating and the protective paper required to protect it can be applied in the press in strip form or as a spot. A coding in the form of a bar code can also be carried out at the same time.

Advantageous further developments result from the subclaims.

Fig. 1

eine Untersicht der Oberbahn eines Gepäckstreifenanhängers in Richtung der Pfeile 1 in Fig. 3,

Fig. 2

die Draufsicht auf den dazugehörigen Unterbahnabschnitt in Richtung der Pfeile 2 in Fig. 3,

Fig. 3

einen Längsschnitt durch die zu dem Gepäckstreifenanhänger zusammengeführten Bahnen,

Fig. 4

einen Längsschnitt durch das am Gepäckstück zu befestigende Anhängerteil nach Abtrennen des Kontrollabschnitts, die

Fig. 5a) und b)

Längsschnitte durch den abgetrennten Kontrollabschnitt in unterschiedlichen Gebrauchszuständen,

Fig. 6

eine Untersicht der Oberbahn eines anderen Ausführungsbeispiels in Richtung der Pfeile 6 in Fig. 8,

Fig. 7

die Draufsicht auf den dazugehörigen Unterbahnabschnitt in Richtung der Pfeile 7,

Fig. 8

einen Längsschnitt durch die zu dem Gepäckstreifenanhänger zusammengeführten Bahnen,

Fig. 9

einen Längsschnitt durch das am Gepäckstück zu befestigende Anhängerteil nach Abtrennen des Kontrollabschnitts, die

Fig. 10a) und b)

Längsschnitte durch den abgetrennten Kontrollabschnitt in unterschiedlichen Gebrauchszuständen,

Fig. 11

schematisch den Ablauf eines Verfahrens zur Herstellung eines Gepäckstreifenanhängers gemäß der Erfindung,

Fig. 12

schematisch eine teilweise Drauf- bzw. Untersicht zu Fig. 11 und

Fig. 13

ebenfalls schematisch die Koronabehandlung der trennwirksam beschichteten Bahn.

The invention is explained below with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawing. It shows

Fig. 1

a bottom view of the upper track of a luggage tag trailer in the direction of arrows 1 in Fig. 3,

Fig. 2

the top view of the associated lower web section in the direction of arrows 2 in Fig. 3,

Fig. 3

a longitudinal section through the tracks brought together to form the baggage tag trailer,

Fig. 4

a longitudinal section through the trailer part to be attached to the piece of luggage after detaching the control section, the

5a) and b)

Longitudinal sections through the separated control section in different conditions of use,

Fig. 6

a bottom view of someone else's top track Embodiment in the direction of arrows 6 in Fig. 8,

Fig. 7

the top view of the associated lower web section in the direction of arrows 7,

Fig. 8

a longitudinal section through the tracks brought together to form the baggage tag trailer,

Fig. 9

a longitudinal section through the trailer part to be attached to the piece of luggage after detaching the control section, the

10a) and b)

Longitudinal sections through the separated control section in different conditions of use,

Fig. 11

schematically the sequence of a method for producing a baggage tag trailer according to the invention,

Fig. 12

schematically a partial top or bottom view of Fig. 11 and

Fig. 13

also schematically the corona treatment of the release-coated web.

An embodiment of a luggage strip trailer according to the invention is shown in FIG. 3 in a longitudinal section and in FIGS. 1 and 2 in plan views. The luggage strip trailer 1 is designed as a section of an endless stack or a roll, the individual trailers 1 following one another in the stack or in the roll being each separated from one another by separating perforation lines. Such a perforation line 2, along which the previous tag was severed, limits the illustrated trailer 1 to the right side in the illustration; on the opposite perforation line 3, the tag 1 is still connected to the stack or the roll.

The luggage tag trailer 1 consists of a continuous top web 4 and a bottom web section 5 serving as a protective cover. It comprises a trailer part 6 and a control section 7; the control section 7 is designed as a tear-off part 4 ″ which runs along a transverse dividing line 8 provided in the upper web 4, e.g. a separating cut or a separating perforation from which the trailer part 6 can be separated. To facilitate subsequent labeling, the top web 4 can be coated on the front side in a thermosensitive manner.

In the exemplary embodiment shown, the top web 4, as can be seen from the bottom view according to FIG. 1, is only coated on both sides of the dividing line 8 with the release of narrow edge zones 9 with a pressure-sensitive adhesive which forms an adhesive zone 10. Such a uniform adhesive zone can also be applied with dispersion glue using a conventional adhesive dispensing head in a continuous process. The lower web section 5, which has the same width b as the upper web 4, is covered over its entire area with the exception of a transverse region 11 with a release agent 12, e.g. Silicone, coated. While the lower web section 5, which is somewhat longer than the adhesive zone 10 for safety reasons, covers it in a protective manner, the non-separating area 11, as soon as it comes into contact with the pressure sensitive adhesive in the adhesive zone 10, causes the lower web section 5 to be firmly bonded to the tear-off part 4 '. ', which can be referred to as adhesive bridge 13.

On the user side, the baggage tag trailer 1, as long as it is still connected to the stack or the roll, labeled, for example by a printer, in particular by a thermal printer, and automatically or by hand along the dividing line 3. The luggage strip trailer 1 is then gripped by hand on the trailer part 6 and on the control section 7 and separated along the dividing line 8 in the upper web 4.

The resulting trailer part 6 is shown in Fig. 4 in longitudinal section. It consists of the upper web section 4 'and has on its right edge over the length l₁ a free activated adhesive surface 10', by means of which the part can be glued into a loop in itself. Even if the bonding should be hasty and therefore somewhat inaccurate, the fact that the edge zones 9 are kept glue-free gives sufficient leeway to prevent any free glue surfaces from remaining open.

The control section 7 (FIG. 5a) consists of the tear-off part 4 ″ of the upper web 4 which has been cut off along the dividing line 8 and to which the part 5 ″ of the lower web adheres firmly via the adhesive bridge 13. Beneath the tear-off part 4 ″, a transverse perforation line 14 is attached in the lower web 5 ″, along which the free part 5 ′ of the lower web section 5 coated with a separating effect can be folded over by 180 degrees in the manner shown in FIG. 5b. The adhesive surface 10 '' is exposed over the length l₂, with which the control section 7 e.g. can be glued into a plane ticket. This not only means that there is no part coated with release agent for disposal, but the underside of the lower web section 5, which becomes 180 ° to the top when it is folded over, can still be used sensibly, for example for an advertising print 15 (FIG. 5b).

6 to 10 is another embodiment a luggage tag trailer according to the invention. This baggage tag trailer 21 can also be seen as a section of an endless stack or a roll and is delimited on the right-hand side by a perforation line 22 and on the left-hand side by a perforation line 23. The luggage tag trailer 21 consists of a continuous top track 24; the lower web in turn extends as a lower web section 25 of length l below the adhesive zones, which are arranged for later gluing below the trailer part 26 on the one hand and the control section 27 on the other hand. These adhesive zones are shown in detail in FIG. 6, which shows a bottom view of the top web 4 before the bottom web section 25 is applied.

Adhesive zones are located on both sides of the dividing line 28, namely on the one hand an adhesive zone 29 below the upper web section 24 'assigned to the trailer part 26, and an adhesive zone 30 below the upper web section 24''assigned to the control section 27 and forming a tear-off part. As shown in Fig. 6, the width b₂ of the adhesive zone 29 is somewhat less than the part 31 of the lower web section 25 coated with a separating effect, the width of which is indicated by b₁; thus edge regions 34 which do not separate remain along the longitudinal edges, in which a firm bond can take place. The adhesive zone 30 has two areas, namely a narrower area 30 'whose width b₂ corresponds to that of the adhesive zone 29 and a wider area 30''whose width b₃ is greater than the width b₁ of the separating area, but of course less than the width b of the baggage tag trailer 21 itself. In this way it is ensured that the (31) web section 25 coated with a separating effect allows the narrow adhesive zone 29 and the narrower area 30 ′ of the adhesive zone 30 to be exposed and activated in the area of the outer parts 30 ″ after removal. ', since there is no release agent, but firm and again forming an adhesive bridge to which the upper web section 24 ″ is glued.

Here too, after the luggage strip trailer 21 has been labeled as required, the trailer part 26 and the control section 27 are gripped by hand and separated along the dividing line 28. This separation is easily possible since the two adhesive zones 29 and 30 only start at a certain distance from the dividing line 28. The lower web section 25 also extends beyond the adhesive zone 29 on the opposite side, on the left in the illustration, so that here too the lower web section 25 can be easily detached to expose the adhesive zones.

The trailer part 26 with the activated adhesive zone 29 is shown in FIG. 9 in a partial longitudinal section; it can be glued into a loop around the handle of a piece of luggage. The control section 27, after it has been separated from the trailer part 26, has the shape shown in FIG. 10a, in which the tear-off part 24 ″ in the two partial areas 30 ″ ″ is firmly bonded to the lower web section 25 outside the separating area 31. Here too, a kink perforation 32 is provided in this area, which allows the free part of the lower web section 25 to be folded over slightly, as a result of which, as shown in FIG. 10 b, the narrower area 30 ′ of the adhesive zone 30 is activated. Here, too, it is again possible to provide the lower web section 25 with an advertising print 33 or the like on its rear side.

The production of luggage strip trailers according to FIGS. 1 to 3 can be explained with reference to FIGS. 11 to 13. The baggage tag trailers 1 are produced parallel to the running direction of a material web 40, the width of which is a multiple of the width of the individual baggage tag tags 1 1 corresponds. After removal from a roll 41, the material web 40 is thermosensitively coated in a station 42 in a first operation, optionally also printed in a printing station 43 by means of a pair of rollers 44.

Thereafter, in a further operation in a glue station 45, a pair of rollers 46 is used to apply pressure-sensitive adhesive to the back of the web in order to produce the adhesive zones 10. In the middle area of FIG. 12, this is indicated in a bottom view of the material web 40.

The coated lower web sections 5 are then fed in a further station 47. This takes place via a web 49 which continuously runs from a roller 48 and has a separation effect and is guided via a station 50 for corona treatment. This treatment station 50 comprises, for example, an electrode roller 51 and an electrode 52, between which the continuously applied, separating coating 12 is rendered ineffective over a transverse strip-shaped area 53 (FIG. 13). The web 49 then runs over a cutting cylinder 54, in which sections 55 are cut off from the web 49, the length l of which corresponds to that of the lower web sections 5. These web sections 55 are then picked up by a suction cylinder 56 and fed to the material web 40 on its rear side. The control of the feed takes place in the repeat so that the areas 54 of the web sections 55 which are ineffective for separation come to lie below the adhesive zones 10, so that there the fixed adhesive bonding 13 can take place below the adhesive zones 10 '' assigned to the tear-off parts 4 '' .

The merged webs can then be punched, slotted, perforated and cut into individual strips in a further station 57, shown only schematically are then stored as an endless stack 58 or in the form of rolls.

Alternatively, it is also possible not to apply the pressure-sensitive adhesive 10 to the adhesive web 10 ′ and 10 ″, as described above, directly on the back of the material web 40, but rather at the appropriate locations on the already corona-treated lower web 49, in order to then apply it the merge of the webs in the transfer process to transfer to the back of the material web 40. A corresponding glue application station 45 'would then have to be provided between the station 50 for corona treatment and the station 47 for bringing together the material web 40 and the web sections 5.

Claims (12)

Luggage strip trailer in endless or roll form for machine labeling from a trailer part (6, 26) to be attached to a piece of luggage and a control section (7, 27), - In which the control section (7, 27) comprises a tear-off part (4 '', 24 '') which can be separated from the trailer part (6, 26) along a transverse dividing line and - In which both the trailer part (6, 26) and the tear-off part (4 '', 24 '') have adhesive zones (10, 29, 30) coated with pressure sensitive adhesive on the back on both sides of the dividing line (8, 28) are each covered by web parts (5, 25) designed to be separable by coating with a release agent (12, 31), characterized,
that the adhesive zones (10, 29, 30) are covered by a one-piece web section (5, 25), the width (b) of which corresponds to that of the top web (4, 24) and which at least in the region of the adhesive zone (10 '', 30) of the tear-off part (7, 27) has at least one partial region (11, 34) which is designed to be ineffective in separating and enables firm gluing. Luggage tag trailer according to claim 1, characterized in that the adhesive layer (10) is applied to the upper web (4) only in the inner area with the release of narrow strips (9) along the longitudinal edges. Luggage tag trailer according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the adhesive layer forms a continuous adhesive zone (10) and that the region (11) of the otherwise continuously coated web section (5) which is designed to be inoperative extends transversely over its entire width (b). Baggage tag trailer according to one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the adhesive layer consists of two adhesive zones, the adhesive zone (30) on the tear-off part (24 '') forming two areas of different width, namely an area (30 ') of smaller width (b₁) and an area (30 '') of greater width (b₃) and that the web section (25) is effective only over an approximate width (b₁) of the narrow area (30 ') corresponding width (b₂), but is ineffective in the longitudinal edge areas (34) extending beyond it . Luggage tag trailer according to one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that the web section (5, 25) is provided with a kink perforation (14, 32) in the region of the tear-off part. Luggage tag trailer according to claim 5, characterized in that the kink perforation (14, 32) is arranged approximately in the border area between the separating area (13 or 31) and the fixed adhesive. A method of manufacturing a baggage tag trailer according to claims 1 to 6, characterized in that in a continuous process - a material web (40) running from a roll (41), the width of which corresponds to a plurality of the width of individual baggage tag tags (1), - Is optionally coated and / or printed on the front thermosensitive that - Then the adhesive that forms the adhesive zones (10) is applied in that - Then, from the back of the material web (40), the web sections (5) coated with a separating effect on partial areas are fed and combined with the material web (40) and that - Finally, the material web (40) is cut into individual strips in the longitudinal direction. A method according to claim 7, characterized in that for the production of the web sections (5) a continuously separatingly coated web (49) is subjected to corona treatment in partial areas in order to cancel the separating efficiency in the corresponding areas and that the web (49) thereafter into individual web sections (55) is separated. Method according to claim 7, characterized in that the corona treatment and the cutting of the web (49) take place shortly before the union with the material web (40). Method according to one of claims 7 to 9, characterized in that the adhesive forming the adhesive zones (10, 29, 30) is applied directly to the back of the material web (40). Method according to one of claims 7 to 9, characterized in that the adhesive forming the adhesive zones (10, 29, 30) is applied to the front of the web (49) coated with a release agent and then transferred to the back of the material web (40) in the transfer process . A method according to claim 11, characterized in that the adhesive is applied to the web (49) which has been coated so as to be effective after the corona treatment.

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