Here’s how you do it:

Recognize a Problem. Conceive a solution. Disclose. Publication by inventor starts the clock, but also informs the public, guarding against being cheated by a bad-faith infringer from practicing before the applicant can file. Claim. Patent. 

Now… My trail mix bag ripped. Go.

There remains a pervasive problem in the field of the art of extruded-tube snack-bags that , The intended me to be sealed the top and bottom, and therefore logical to be opened at top and bottom, to provide a bag which naturally tears parallel to the seal, rather than parallel to the length of the bag. 

Summary of the invention. 

The present bag provides a process of achieving one which is stiffened in accord with the existing art, by having heat-welded seams applied at desired intervals along the extruded-tube blanks, and provides the improvement of a longitudinal seam or perforation on only one side of the bag, far enough inward from the curved margin of the bag to avoid shear loadings causing a rip of the bag at the edge of the bag which extends between the points of stress concentration which lie between the edges of the welded seams at the top and bottom of the bag.

Detailed description: 

After cutting to separate successive bags,The seams effect a degree of stiffness when tensile or shear force are applied in either the longitudinal or the transverse direction. This stiffness secures the contents of the bag by exploiting the uniform tensile strength of the tube while it is being produced by the extruding process. However, because the tube is pliant and the seams are stiff, as well as causing the tube material to pinch back on itself at a tight radius in order for the seam to flatten the tube, a stress concentration is created at the junction of the un-welded material and the seam. Shear loads applied to the side of the bag result in tear initiation, once the plastic deformation limit is breached, at which point the force resisting movement of the opener’s hand plummets. Because of the rapid decrease in resistance force, the bag tears until the opening user relaxes their force applied. The uniform strength of the tube material, however, carries the cut diagonally across the bag. The resulting aperture is long and deep, rendering the bag difficult to close and retain closed, such as if the user wished to interrupt consuming the contents and rolling it up to be reopened later. To apply the welded seam, the entire length of the tube would receive the ~stitched perforation feature to one margin, applied evenly on both sides. Then the bag is guided by a rail with engages the perforation and guides it through the interval welder, with the welder at an angle which is offset from horizontal, rendering the stitch/perforation that was applied while the bag was laid flat on the face of the bag, as the finished bag will lay according to the plane parallel to the seam, and not the angle at which the bag laid while passing through the welding machine, which the current pervasive practice. By performing the perforation before the weld, the perforation does not risk injury to the bag during distribution, whereas perforating along the bag after the seal would risk a seal being nicked and then the rip propagating down the seal, tearing across the entire depth of the bag. Tearing the present invention would thus be performed by applying force in a similar manner to the existing art, but with the assistance of the flange created by applying the stitch perforation extending along the length of the bag between the welded seams on one side of the bag, tearing at the junction of the welded seam and the tight-radius point of the unwelded body of the bag, but upon the rip propagating across the bag, it will encounter the perforation on only one side and thus progress along the length of the bag at the seam.Because the seam was rendered on one side of the bag, the body of the bag retains a flap that extends from one side of the bag around to the front. 

To reclose the bag for reuse later, the flap resulting from the tear is folded toward the tear and then the bag may be folded again, parallel to the length of the welded seams, or rolled-up, and the flap will therefore remain closed, securing the contents against leaking out.

Boom. Conceived and disclosed in one hour. 

Now who wants a piece? Trigger-happy Assignees contact dan@becker-ip.com