Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
Funnels begone! The Paco Rabanne perfume refill system is a patented invention. The US utility patent, US10399103B2, titled System and method for refilling a bottle with liquid, was awarded on September 3rd 2019, to the French inventors, Jean-Philippe Lamboux and Frédéric Simian, and assigned to the company Techniplast, which markets the RT-Twist cap refill system.
The patent recites a refill system, comprising a refill bottle with liquid under pressure, a pump, and a refill interface. An interface that connects the refill bottle to a bottle to be refilled, enabling the liquid from the refill bottle to transfer to the bottle to be refilled. The 33-page patent recites ten different embodiments of the invention, including without limitation embodiments where the refill bottle is variously placed below the bottle to be refilled, or upside-down above the bottle to be re-filled, and side-by-side embodiments using flexible tubing between the interfaces of both the refill bottle and the bottle to be refilled. The different embodiments of the refill system are recited to extend the scope of the invention to varying existing perfume bottle designs, without having to alter the existing perfume bottle designs in any way to make them refillable.
The extracted patent Figure 10b shows one of the embodiments of the refill system, where a first bottle S’’ is on the bottom, another bottle R, equipped with a pump P’’ is inverted on top of the first bottle, and an interface 150 is positioned between both bottles. A finger is shown with an arrow, indicating that pressure is exerted downward on the bottle R to activate the refill. The lower bottle S’’ contains refill liquid L and a gas G’ under pressure. The gas under pressure is air, or an inert gas, to avoid deteriorating the liquid L composition. The lower bottle S’’ also comprises a valve system S’’c, S’’r, S’’v, that opens and closes under external, finger-exerted, axial pressure. The lower part of the valve system S’’c is extended with a dip tube T, through which the liquid under pressure will travel up to the upper bottle R to be refilled, when axial pressure is exerted that opens the valve system. The system further comprises a block 152, comprising two passages: the passage P’’1 for transferring liquid from the S’’ bottle to the inverted bottle R, and the passage P’’2 for evacuating air from the R bottle. The interface 152 latches onto a groove at the base of the bottle R neck, using an attachment member 154, which pre-depresses the bottle R pump. The other end of the interface 150 covers the S’’ bottle valve system.
Two refill bottles together with their RT-Twist caps are shown above. The refill bottles correspond respectively to the Paco Rabanne Phantom (male) and Fame (female) perfumes, each conditioned in collection-worthy, robot-looking bottles, connected to the Paco Rabanne universe. A Youtube video is included below that illustrates the refill system for the Fame Paco Rabanne perfume bottle, using the refill bottle on top and the bottle to be refilled on the bottom.
The abstract of the invention appears below:
The invention concerns a system for refilling a bottle with liquid, which comprises:- a first bottle (S) containing liquid,- a second bottle (R) to be refilled with the liquid from the first bottle (S), the second bottle being in an inverted position and comprising a pump mounted on the bottle and equipped with a vent orifice that can be open or closed depending on the position of the pump,- a filling interface connecting the two bottles, the interface comprising a liquid passage disposed between the two bottles for the transfer of the liquid under pressure from the first bottle (S) to the inverted second bottle (R) via said vent orifice of the pump of the second bottle when open and a gas passage for the evacuation of gas contained in the inverted second bottle (R) to the exterior of the bottle. [Abstract US10399103B2]
Paco Rabanne [website]
Techniplast [website]
No comments:
Post a Comment