Apple Files New Patent - for a Paper Bag

Apple’s New Patent – White Solid Bleached Sulfate Paper Bag

Apple tends to file for new patent application on various things and when it does so, people seem to take an account of it. The latest patent application is for a drumroll, a paper bag. It is not any old bag but `a bag container which is formed of white solid bleached sulfate paper having at least 60% of post-consumer content.

According to the report of Gizmodo, the US Patent and Trademark Office – USPTO had recently published an Apple patent application for a paper bag. The bag could hold stuff and one which has already been utilised in the stores of Apple for many months. Considering the bag from the millions of the other paper bags in the world, are its environmental credentials with recycling material of 60%. Recycling paper bags are not an invention and in this case it is how Apple intends to hold the bag together with high proportion of recycled material.

The white paper bags which is made of recycled material is said to be quite flimsy owing to the amount of bleach utilised. Hence Apple has come up with a pack of modifications which could be helpful in keeping its bags pearly white as well as environmentally friendly.

These changes comprise of elegant reinforcements towards the bottom which tend to stick to the side together with a handle `formed completely of paper fibre yarn which is knitted in an 8-stitch circular knit pattern.

Designed to be `High-End Retail Bag’

Accordingto an application of Apple, the bag could be formed completely of paper with the possible exception of adhesives in order to fix portions of the bag together. It further states that `its reinforcement inserts could augment the strength and resistance in tearing the bag container material in making it structurally appropriate for use as a bag, thus amassing the quantity of post-consumer content to be used in an SBS bag.

This could be helpful in plummeting any ecological impact from production, use and disposal of the bag. Similar to the other technology companies, Apple patents a swing of technologies which may or may not make progress to store shelves. The said bag which it intends to pitch to the USPTO could be just another in a long line of inventions which the company is patenting with expectations of preventing other retailers from imitating its look and feel.

 Moreover, it is also said to be a bag which is in line with its specified goal to be more environmentally accountable. In its detailed description, Apple had stated that it is a bag which is designed to be a `high-end retail bag’.

Reinforcement Inserts

The mention of `post-consumer content’ here means that 60% of the paper material of the bag has been recycled. Eventually that amount could be beneficial to restrict its environmental effect on all phases inclusive of production, use and disposal.

As Apple notes that environmental friendly, could at times tend to have negative consequences on a retailer. Apple states in general that any bag having over 40% or 50% recycled material could be `prone to tearing’.To avoid those problems, the bag that Apple seems to have `reinforcement inserts’ tends to keep it strong while providing more recycled paper.

 The said bag seems to look absolutely like any other Apple store bag with the exception of the drawings which does not show the logo of Apple on either side. Apple has not mentioned in its patent filing what the future could hold for the bag.