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11/03/05 - USPTO Class 015 |  36 views | #20050241088 | Prev - Next | About this Page  015 rss/xml feed  monitor keywords

Device for treating surfaces

USPTO Application #: 20050241088
Title: Device for treating surfaces
Abstract: Disclosed herein is a device for treating surfaces, and cleaning and/or polishing surfaces. The device comprises a hollow member having an open end adapted for the insertion of two or more fingers. The hollow member is defined between a first sheet layer which includes an elastic layer and a second sheet layer including a fibrous nonwoven web layer having an exposed surface. The fibrous nonwoven web layer is impregnated on at least a portion of the exposed surface with a treating composition such as a buffing, cleaning or polishing composition. (end of abstract)



Agent: Kimberly-clark Worldwide, Inc. - Neenah, WI, US
Inventors: Michael S. Brunner, Nelson McRay
USPTO Applicaton #: 20050241088 - Class: 015104940 (USPTO)

Related Patent Categories: Brushing, Scrubbing, And General Cleaning, Implements, Tool Coated Or Impregnated With Material Supply, Including Means For Manual Manipulation Of Implement

Device for treating surfaces description/claims


The Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20050241088, Device for treating surfaces.

Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] Various combinations of articles have been used for the cleaning, buffing and polishing of hard surfaced materials. Cleaning and polishing "kits" may typically comprise three separate components. For example, such kits may comprise a container, such as a bottle or tin, to hold the cleaning composition or polishing composition, an applicator to deliver the composition to the hard surface and to spread the composition on the surface, and a polishing article used to remove a cleaning composition and/or buff a polishing composition into the surface while removing excess polishing composition. As a specific example, a shoe polishing "kit" may consist of a tin or other container of shoe wax or polish, a small brush, a sponge or a first cloth to be used as the polish applicator, and a second larger brush or second cloth to be used for polishing or buffing the waxed shoe surface to a shiny appearance.

[0002] However, such cleaning/polishing kits as described above are bulky and consume valuable space, particularly when a user is traveling and the actual need is only for a small touch-up application of cleaner and/or polish to attend to a surface blemish obtained during travel. Also, it is possible for one or more of the various components of such cleaning or polishing kits to become separated and lost from the others, rendering the kit essentially useless. Furthermore, such cleaning/polishing kits are designed for many instances of use, and where the kit is only infrequently used the cleaning and/or polishing composition is subject to spoilage or desiccation, such that only a few uses are obtained before the remainder of the kit must be discarded as waste.

[0003] Therefore, the need exists for a self-contained, all in one treating device which is capable of holding an impregnated treating composition such as a cleaning and/or polishing composition, and then delivering the treating composition to a surface to be cleaned and/or polished, and then further capable of being utilized to buff or polish the surface. In addition, it would be highly advantageous for such a treating device to be provided as a single-use item which is constructed in such a manner which is consistent with the costs dictated by the disposable applications for items which are utilized in limited- or single-use disposable products.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0004] To be written. Summary is a re-writing of finalized claims language.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0005] FIG. 1 illustrates a fibrous nonwoven web layer which has been bonded with a point unbonded bonding pattern.

[0006] FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary engraved thermal bonding calendar suitable for providing a point unbonded bonding pattern to a web material.

[0007] FIG. 3 schematically illustrates a device for treating surfaces according to an embodiment of the invention.

[0008] FIG. 4 schematically illustrates a device for treating surfaces according to another embodiment of the invention

DEFINITIONS

[0009] As used herein and in the claims, the term "comprising" is inclusive or open-ended and does not exclude additional unrecited elements, compositional components, or method steps. Accordingly, the term "comprising" encompasses the more restrictive terms "consisting essentially of" and "consisting of".

[0010] As used herein the term "polymer" generally includes but is not limited to, homopolymers, copolymers, such as for example, block, graft, random and alternating copolymers, terpolymers, etc. and blends and modifications thereof. Furthermore, unless otherwise specifically limited, the term "polymer" shall include all possible geometrical configurations of the material. These configurations include, but are not limited to isotactic, syndiotactic and random symmetries. As used herein the term "thermoplastic" or "thermoplastic polymer" refers to polymers that will soften and flow or melt when heat and/or pressure are applied, the changes being reversible.

[0011] As used herein, the terms "elastic" and "elastomeric" are generally used to refer to a material that, upon application of a force, is stretchable to a stretched, biased length which is at least about 133%, or one and a third times, its relaxed, unstretched length, and which upon release of the stretching, biasing force will recover at least about 50% of its elongation. By way of example only, an elastic material having a relaxed, unstretched length of 10 centimeters may be elongated to at least about 13.3 centimeters by the application of a stretching or biasing force. Upon release of the stretching or biasing force the elastic material will recover to a length of not more than 11.65 centimeters.

[0012] As used herein the term "fibers" refers to both staple length fibers and substantially continuous filaments, unless otherwise indicated. As used herein the term "substantially continuous" with respect to a filament or fiber means a filament or fiber having a length much greater than its diameter, for example having a length to diameter ratio in excess of about 15,000 to 1, and desirably in excess of 50,000 to 1.

[0013] As used herein the term "monocomponent" filament refers to a filament formed from one or more extruders using only one polymer. This is not meant to exclude filaments formed from one polymer to which small amounts of additives have been added for color, anti-static properties, lubrication, hydrophilicity, etc.

[0014] As used herein the term "multicomponent filaments" refers to filaments that have been formed from at least two component polymers, or the same polymer with different properties or additives, extruded from separate extruders but spun together to form one filament. Multicomponent filaments are also sometimes referred to as conjugate filaments or bicomponent filaments, although more than two components may be used. The polymers are arranged in substantially constantly positioned distinct zones across the cross-section of the multicomponent filaments and extend continuously along the length of the multicomponent filaments. The configuration of such a multicomponent filament may be, for example, a concentric or eccentric sheath/core arrangement wherein one polymer is surrounded by another, or may be a side by side arrangement, an "islands-in-the-sea" arrangement, or arranged as pie-wedge shapes or as stripes on a round, oval or rectangular cross-section filament, or other configurations. Multicomponent filaments are taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,108,820 to Kaneko et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,336,552 to Strack et al. Conjugate fibers are also taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,382,400 to Pike et al. and may be used to produced crimp in the fibers by using the differential rates of expansion and contraction of the two (or more) polymers. For two component filaments, the polymers may be present in ratios of 75/25, 50/50, 25/75 or any other desired ratios. In addition, any given component of a multicomponent filament may desirably comprise two or more polymers as a multiconstituent blend component.

[0015] As used herein the terms "biconstituent filament" or "multiconstituent filament" refer to a filament formed from at least two polymers, or the same polymer with different properties or additives, extruded from the same extruder as a blend. Multiconstituent filaments do not have the polymer components arranged in substantially constantly positioned distinct zones across the cross-section of the multicomponent filaments; the polymer components may form fibrils or protofibrils that start and end at random.

[0016] As used herein the terms "nonwoven web" or "nonwoven fabric" refer to a web having a structure of individual filaments or filaments that are interlaid, but not in an identifiable manner as in a knitted or woven fabric. Nonwoven fabrics or webs have been formed from many processes such as for example, meltblowing processes, spunbonding processes, airlaying processes, and carded web processes. The basis weight of nonwoven fabrics is usually expressed in grams per square meter (gsm) or ounces of material per square yard (osy) and the filament diameters useful are usually expressed in microns. (Note that to convert from osy to gsm, multiply osy by 33.91).

[0017] The terms "spunbond" or "spunbond nonwoven web" refer to a nonwoven fiber or filament material of small diameter filaments that are formed by extruding molten thermoplastic polymer as filaments from a plurality of capillaries of a spinneret. The extruded filaments are cooled while being drawn by an eductive or other well known drawing mechanism. The drawn filaments are deposited or laid onto a forming surface in a generally random manner to form a loosely entangled filament web, and then the laid filament web is subjected to a bonding process to impart physical integrity and dimensional stability. The production of spunbond fabrics is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,340,563 to Appel et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,692,618 to Dorschner et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 3,802,817 to Matsuki et al. Typically, spunbond fibers or filaments have a weight-per-unit-length in excess of about 1 denier and up to about 6 denier or higher, although both finer and heavier spunbond filaments can be produced. In terms of filament diameter, spunbond filaments often have an average diameter of larger than 7 microns, and more particularly between about 10 and about 25 microns, and up to about 30 microns or more.

[0018] As used herein the term "meltblown fibers" means fibers or microfibers formed by extruding a molten thermoplastic material through a plurality of fine, usually circular, die capillaries as molten threads or filaments or fibers into converging high velocity gas (e.g. air) streams that attenuate the fibers of molten thermoplastic material to reduce their diameter. Thereafter, the meltblown fibers are carried by the high velocity gas stream and are deposited on a collecting surface to form a web of randomly dispersed meltblown fibers. Such a process is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,849,241 to Buntin. Meltblown fibers may be continuous or discontinuous, are often smaller than 10 microns in average diameter and are frequently smaller than 7 or even 5 microns in average diameter, and are generally tacky when deposited onto a collecting surface.

[0019] As used herein "carded webs" refers to nonwoven webs formed by carding processes as are known to those skilled in the art and further described, for example, in coassigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,488,928 to Alikhan and Schmidt which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. Briefly, carding processes involve starting with staple fibers in a bulky baft that is combed or otherwise treated to provide a web of generally uniform basis weight.

[0020] As used herein, "thermal point bonding" involves passing a fabric or web of fibers or other sheet layer material to be bonded between a heated calender roll and an anvil roll. The calender roll is usually, though not always, patterned on its surface in some way so that the entire fabric is not bonded across its entire surface. As a result, various patterns for calender rolls have been developed for functional as well as aesthetic reasons. One example of a pattern has points and is the Hansen Pennings or "H&P" pattern with about a 30% bond area with about 200 bonds/square inch as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 3,855,046 to Hansen and Pennings. The H&P pattern has square point or pin bonding areas wherein each pin has a side dimension of 0.038 inches (0.965 mm), a spacing of 0.070 inches (1.778 mm) between pins, and a depth of bonding of 0.023 inches (0.584 mm). The resulting pattern has a bonded area of about 29.5%. Another typical point bonding pattern is the expanded Hansen and Pennings or "EHP" bond pattern which produces a 15% bond area with a square pin having a side dimension of 0.037 inches (0.94 mm), a pin spacing of 0.097 inches (2.464 mm) and a depth of 0.039 inches (0.991 mm). Other common patterns include a high density diamond or "HDD pattern", which comprises point bonds having about 460 pins per square inch (about 71 pins per square centimeter) for a bond area of about 15% to about 23% and a wire weave pattern looking as the name suggests, e.g. like a window screen. Typically, the percent bonding area varies from around 10% to around 30% or more of the area of the fabric or laminate web. Another known thermal calendering bonding method is the "pattern unbonded" or "point unbonded" or "PUB" bonding as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,858,515 to Stokes et al., wherein continuous bonded areas define a plurality of discrete unbonded areas. Thermal bonding (point bonding or point-unbonding) imparts integrity to individual layers by bonding fibers within the layer and/or for laminates of multiple layers, such thermal bonding holds the layers together to form a cohesive laminate material.

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