WO2006013590A1

WO2006013590A1 - Cardboard box to be transformed into a holder for playing and/or ornamental purposes

Info

Publication number: WO2006013590A1
Application number: PCT/IT2004/000446
Authority: WO
Inventors: Roberto Pazzi
Original assignee: Imac S.P.A.
Priority date: 2004-08-05
Filing date: 2004-08-05
Publication date: 2006-02-09

Abstract

This invention consists in a box (1) and its cover (2), preferably a shoebox, characterized by the presence, on its vertical walls and/or on the cover, of one or more slits (3) for the insertion of appropriate moulded appendixes (A). Such appendixes are designed to match the ox structure, in order to form a stylized figure such as an animal, a car, a train, a castle, etc.; it being provided that said vertical walls and cover must be decorated and/or coloured in order to match said appendixes, for the best stylization of the item.

Description

Cardboard box to be transformed into a holder for playing and/or ornamental purposes.

The patent application concerns a cardboard box, preferably a shoebox, which can be easily transformed into a holder for playing and/or ornamental purposes.

Said device was conceived in order to give a boost to a sector that for too long has been dependant on completely standardized solutions.

In fact, cardboard shoeboxes are now invariably parallelepiped- shaped, with removable cover, which leaves their characterization to the decorations only.

Furthermore, due to their "ordinary" look, traditional shoeboxes are often easily discarded or recycled at best, with a great waste of material and, therefore, of money; this happens because not too many people employ shoeboxes for alternative uses.

The present invention consists in a cardboard box, preferably a shoebox, which, despite having the traditional parallelepiped shape, is remarkable because it can be transformed into an aesthetically pleasurable and original, as much as functionally useful and nifty object.

This means, on the one hand, that this new box is less likely to be discarded by the buyer soon after the purchase (and this would be an advantage in terms of rational consumption of the resources for the production of cellulose) and, on the other hand, that it is an effective sales instrument (above all as far as children are concerned), which will probably be a commercial advantage for the shoes it contains versus equivalent shoes contained in traditional boxes.

The shoebox according to the invention features, on its vertical walls and/or on its cover, a number of slits for the insertion and fixing of cardboard appendixes, which the customer will find for free inside the box, together with the shoes. Once the shoes have been removed from the box, the customer will be able to fix the abovementioned cardboard appendixes on the outside of the box which, thanks to appropriate external decorations/colours, will look like a stylized animal, e.g. a spider, a bird, a tortoise, etc. It is clear that the shoebox, with such a "transformation", will not be as easily discarded or recycled right away.

On the contrary, it has great possibilities of being re-used as an original, appealing holder or, as an alternative, of making younger customers happy, since they may ^"see it as a new toy. For major clarity, the description of the invention continues with reference to the enclosed drawings, which is only for illustration and has no limitation value, in which figures 1 and 2A/2B are axonometric representations related to two possible versions of the shoebox, one in the shape of a bird and one in the shape of a monkey. In the preferred embodiment shown in the two figures, the shoebox (I)₁ complete with its cover (2), has a traditional parallelepiped shape and is made of cardboard.

As already mentioned, the peculiarity of this box (1) is the presence of a number of slits (3) on the vertical walls (1a) and/or on the cover (2), in which a number of moulded appendixes (A), in the same material of the box (1), can be inserted.

Said appendixes (A) can be moulded in the shape of a quadruped's or a spider's legs, or of a bird's head, wings and tail, it being provided that the shoebox (1), thanks to an appropriate external decoration/colouring, will look like the animal's body, which the abovementioned appendixes (A) must be matched to from the morphologic and decorative point of view.

It must be added that the shoebox (1) and the related cover (2) can be, technically speaking, of the "reversible" kind: this means that the box can be "turned inside out", i.e. the customer may choose which face of the vertical walls should look inside and which should look outside.

In this view, the box according to the invention could be produced with a featureless external surface, even in one colour, and the decorated surface, reproducing an animal's body, on the inside, and therefore non visible.

The customer, at any rate, can easily turn the walls inside out, so that the animal's stylized "body" becomes visible, and can be completed with the matching appendixes. Even if so far what has been said about the box is that it can be transformed into a holder for playing and/or ornamental purposes in the shape of a stylized animal, nothing excludes the application of this inventive principle to other purposes.

There is the possibility to produce further versions of the shoebox, which, thanks to appropriate appendixes to be fixed externally, can take the shape of any other stylized toy, such as a car, a train, a castle, etc.

Likewise, nothing excludes the application of the same inventive principle to boxes of different shapes or in different materials, provided that thy are technically viable.

Claims

1) Box and related cover, characterized by the presence, on its vertical walls (1a) and/or on the cover (2) of one or more slits (3) for the insertion of the appropriate moulded appendixes (A) designed to match the box structure, in order to form a stylized figure such as an animal, a car, a train, a castle, etc. 2) Box according to claim 1, characterized in that its walls (1a) and cover (2) are decorated and/or coloured, so that they match the abovementioned moulded appendixes (A) for the best stylization of the item.

3) Box according to claim 2, characterized in that its structure is reversible.

4) Box according to one or more of the previous claims, characterized by the fact of being made of cardboard.

5) Box according to one or more of the claims above, characterized by the fact of being parallelepiped-shaped.