In U.S. Pat. No. 3,104,799, issued Sept. 24, 1963 to D. J. Steidinger, there is described the first truly practical continuous business form mailing assembly. Steidinger's invention, as therein disclosed, involved sandwiching insert material between two elongated plies of paper constituting the front and the back of the mailing assembly. The insert material was die cut so as to be free of attachment to the envelope on three sides and yet be continuous on the fourth side. This enabled the insert material to be properly registered within the envelope so that it could be printed upon, by image transfer material within the envelope itself, by an impact printer. Steidinger's invention was a huge success and it is still considered the best form of its type available because of the ability to maintain registration of the insert material within the envelope during printing.
The Steidinger envelope could be opened by use of a tear strip on the side of the envelope whereat the insert was continuous. Tearing across that edge of the envelope, generally along lines of perforation provided to facilitate the same, broke the attachment of the insert side to the envelope, thereby freeing the insert material for extraction.
The recipient of the insert could then bow the envelope and reach into the same to grasp the insert material and remove it from the envelope. In many cases, thumb notches were provided in association with the tear strip such that the thumb notches would be removed with the tear strip allowing one to grasp the insert material at the location of the thumb notches.
Other forms of opening devices were also suggested. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,554,438 issued Jan. 12, 1971 to Van Malderghem, the insert was die cut so as to be free of attachment to the envelope on three sides as in the Steidinger construction. However, the continuous fourth side was located oppositely of the tear strip and a so-called "keen" perforation located between the main body of the insert and its continuous margin.
In addition, the edge of the insert opposite the keen perforation extended through and overlapped the tear strip on the opposite side of the envelope. Thus, one wishing to open the envelope could grasp the same on opposite sides and snap loose the tear strip. This force was usually enough to break the keen perforation connecting the insert material to the envelope and the frictional force applied at the tear strip while grasping the same would remove the insert material from the envelope.
Another example of a similar form of envelope is found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,841,549 issued Oct. 15, 1974 to Wakeman.
While these envelopes work well for their intended purposes, as a practical matter they are generally limited to use with side opening envelopes. Moreover, there may be instances wherein the user of the envelope does not wish the recipient to have to perform the opening of the envelope and the extraction of the insert in two steps (as in Steidinger) or even in a single step as in Van Malderghem or Wakeman; but rather, desires that the opening of the envelope expose a substantial part of the insert material to the recipient, while freeing the insert material from the envelope but yet, without partially or fully extracting the insert material from the envelope. This may be, for example, particularly desirable in the case of a top opening envelope in contrast to the typical side opening envelopes proposed by the patentees identified above.
At least one effort has been made to provide a top opening envelope wherein the opening of the envelope exposes a portion of the insert material without removing the same from the envelope. However, in the known construction, the insert material, even prior to the opening of the envelope, is free from the envelope and thus the user may experience registration difficulties. In particular, the insert material may shift within the envelope with the consequence that subsequently printed variable information may appear at the wrong location on the insert.
Steidinger also envisioned that his mailers might contain more than simply variable information intended for a recipient. Thus, in one embodiment, Steidinger proposed that the original mailer include a return envelope. Consequently, the original mailer could be utilized for posting a bill to a customer and payment of bill could be made utilizing the return envelope.
The desirability of thus providing some sort of return mailing piece with the original mailer was quickly recognized. At the same time, the bulk of the assembly including the return envelope as proposed by Steidinger was considered to be somewhat undesirable in terms of increased cost of fabrication and difficulties in achieving desired "carbonization", that is, the achieving of crisp images through image transfer material on lowermost plies of the assembly, because it was recognized that the thicker the assembly, the more difficult obtaining proper carbonization was. Similarly, it was considered that some of the cost of materials could be eliminated if the return mailer were not wholly separate from the original mailer.
Thus, Amort, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,312,385 issued Apr. 4, 1967 proposed an envelope assembly including a return mailer wherein the back of the original mailer also constituted the back of the return mailer. This saved one ply of paper, reduced manufacturing costs by eliminating such ply, and improved carbonization by reducing the thickness of the assembly by one ply.
Going even further, Pine et al, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,411,699 issued Nov. 19, 1968 disclosed a mailer assembly where the original mailer, after opening and the removal of a tab, also constituted the return mailer. This further reduced manufacturing difficulties as well as the cost of materials and improved carbonization since it amounted to a reduction of two plies from that required by Steidinger and one ply from that required by Amort. The Pine et al invention was readily appreciated by those skilled in the art and a number of variations on the Pine theme have been proposed as found in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,418,865 issued Dec. 6, 1983 to Bowen.
While these assemblies have worked well for their intended purpose, they are not without shortfalls such as mentioned previously. As noted, in a number of instances, registration during printing may not be readily obtainable and/or may require unusual means to attain. Further, ease of opening the envelope and extracting the insert material can provide difficulties in some types of these assemblies.
The present invention is directed to overcoming the foregoing problems.