EP0537662B1 - Endless or roll-form-bagage tag for mechanical printing - Google Patents

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 according to the preamble of patent claim 1.

Baggage tags are used to identify items of luggage in passenger traffic, 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. The trailer part to be fastened to the piece of luggage is, after exposure of the adhesive layer, 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, especially when checking in at the airline counter, is usually under time pressure , it cannot be ruled out that such papers will fall on the floor and, due to their smooth surface, cause an increased risk of accidents by slipping.

Another disadvantage is that when 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. Therefore, there is a risk that these areas adhere to other pieces 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 of several next to one another in wide webs and only later cut into narrow webs with one trailer 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 due to the heat in the printer and small amounts escape laterally, which then 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, but without damaging the bottom web. This in addition work to be performed is complex and increases the cost of the mass item luggage 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 free 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 around the edges between the silicone and the non-coated surfaces.

The separation-effective formation of webs for protecting 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 requires very long drying sections 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 joined.

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 incurred 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, as well as 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; a subsequent or additional further treatment, in particular an expensive mutual multiple lamination or folding is unnecessary. It is only necessary to subsequently feed the protective cover in the form of individual web sections in the area 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 coated with a separating effect on the adhesive zones of the upper web, which of course must then be designed to be correspondingly tear-resistant.

Since, according to the invention, the adhesive layer on the top sheet 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 one above the 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 both deposited very evenly and gently on the web surface. With such a treatment, which can be integrated into the production process of the luggage tags even at high throughput speeds, it is possible to treat strip-by-strip areas in a continuously separating-coated web in such a way that the separating effectiveness is canceled at least until the webs are brought together.

Overall, the invention allows an economical and therefore inexpensive production of luggage stripe 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 top track of a baggage 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 baggage tag 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 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 upper web 4 and a lower 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 upper 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, firmly bonds the lower web section 5 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 l ₁ a free activated adhesive surface 10', by means of which the part can be glued into a loop. Even if the gluing should be hasty and therefore somewhat inaccurate, the fact that the edge zones 9 are kept glue-free gives sufficient leeway to prevent, for example, 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-coated part 5 ′ of the lower web section 5 can be folded over by 180 degrees in the manner shown in FIG. 5b. In this case, the adhesive surface 10 ″ is exposed over the length l ₂ , with which the control section 7 can be glued, for example, into a flight ticket. Not only does this not result in a part coated with release agent for disposal, but the underside of the lower web section 5, which becomes 180 ° to the upper side due to the folding, can still be used sensibly, for example for an advertising print 15 (FIG. 5b).

6 to 10 is another embodiment of 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. These adhesive zones are shown in detail in FIG. 6, which shows a bottom view of the top web 4 before application of the bottom web section 25.

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 b _{2 of} the adhesive zone 29 is somewhat smaller than the area 31 of the lower web section 25 coated with a separating effect, the width of which is indicated by b ₁ ; 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 ', the width b ₂ of which corresponds to that of the adhesive zone 29 and a wider area 30'', the width b _{3 of which is} greater than the width b _{1 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, after peeling off, allows the narrow adhesive zone 29 and the narrower region 30 'of the adhesive zone 30 to be exposed and activated, in the region of the outer parts 30 '''as 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. After its separation from the trailer part 26, the control section 27 has the shape shown in FIG. 10a, in which the tear-off part 24 ″ is firmly glued to the lower web section 25 in the two partial regions 30 ″ ″ outside the separating region 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 central 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, which is 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 (11)

1. A strip-type luggage label (1) in endless or roll form for machine inscription, comprising a label part (6,26) to be attached to an item of luggage and a check portion (7,27),

   - in which the check portion (7,27) comprises a tear-off part (4",24") which can be separated from the label part (6,26) along a transversely extending dividing line (8,28),

   - in which both the label part (6,26) and the tear-off part (4",24") have on their back surface on either side of the dividing line (8,28) adhesive zones (10,29,30) coated with contact adhesive, wherein the adhesive layer (10) is applied to the upper sheet (4) only in the inner region to leave free narrow strips (9) along the longitudinal edges, and

   - in which the adhesive zones (10,29,30) are covered by a one-piece sheet portion (5,25) which is designed to be separable by being coated with a separating agent (12,31), the width (b) of which corresponds to that of the upper sheet (4,24) and which in the vicinity of the adhesive zone (10",30) of the tear-off part (7,27) has at least one portion (11,34) which is designed not to be separable and which makes possible permanent bonding of the entire sheet portion to the tear-off part (7,27).
2. A strip-type luggage label according to Claim 1, characterised in that the adhesive layer forms a continuous adhesive zone (10), and in that the portion (11), which is designed not to be separable, of the otherwise continuously coated sheet portion (5) extends transversely over the entire width (b) thereof.
3. A strip-type luggage label according to Claim 1 or 2, characterised in that the adhesive layer comprises two adhesive zones, wherein the adhesive zone (30) forms two portions of different width on the tear-off part (24"), namely a portion (30') of lesser width (b₁) and a portion (30") of greater width (b₃), and in that the sheet portion (25) is designed to be separable only over a width (b₂) corresponding approximately to the width (b₁) of the narrow portion (30') but in which longitudinal edge portions (34) extending therebeyond are designed not to be separable.
4. A strip-type luggage label according to any one of Claims 1 to 3, characterised in that in the vicinity of the tear-off part the sheet portion (5,25) is provided with a folding perforation (14,32).
5. A strip-type luggage label according to Claim 4, characterised in that the folding perforation (14,32) is disposed approximately in the boundary zone between the portion (13 and 31) designed to be separable and the permanent bonding.
6. A process for producing a strip-type luggage label according to Claims 1 to 5, characterised in that in a continuously operating process

   - a sheet of material (40) unwinding from a roll (41), whose width corresponds to a multiple of the width of individual strip-type luggage labels (1),

   - optionally, on the front surface a heat-sensitive coating is applied and/or printed, in that

   - subsequently, the adhesive forming adhesive zones (10) is applied to the back surface of the sheet of material (40), in that

   - then from the back surface of the sheet of material (40) the sheet portions (5) are fed which are coated so as to be separable, except for portions, and are joined with the sheet of material (40), and in that

   - finally, the sheet of material (40) is cut into individual strips in longitudinal direction.
7. A process according to Claim 6, characterised in that to produce the sheet portions (5) a sheet (49), which is coated so as to be continuously separable, undergoes a corona treatment so as to remove the separation activity in the corresponding zones, and in that the sheet (49) is subsequently divided into individual sheet portions (55).
8. A process according to Claim 7, characterised in that the corona treatment and the division of the sheet (49) are carried out just before the joining with the sheet of material (40).
9. A process according to any one of Claims 6 to 8, characterised in that the adhesive forming the adhesive zones (10,29,30) is applied directly to the back surface of the sheet of material (40).
10. A process according to any one of Claims 6 to 8, characterised in that the adhesive forming the adhesive zones (10,29,30) is applied to the front surface of the sheet (49) coated so as to be separable and is subsequently transferred in a transfer process to the back surface of the sheet of material (40).
11. A process according to Claim 10, characterised in that after the corona treatment of the sheet (49) coated so as to be separable the adhesive is applied thereto.

Images