The utilization and dispensing of toilet tissue in roll form is well known in the art. Typical dispensers for tissue rolls generally include a base that is attached to a wall or other supporting surface, and support arms that extend transversely from the base. A spindle is inserted through the roll and engaged in recesses or divots at the ends of the support arms. Unfortunately, the roll configuration lends itself to excessive use and waste of the tissue product. Consumers tend to unroll far more tissue than is necessary. It has generally been recognized to be more economical to dispense toilet tissue individually in sheets in a manner similar to dispensing of facial tissues.
Numerous dispensers have been developed in the art specifically for dispensing stacked individual tissue sheets. Such dispensers typically permit the user to remove any number of sheets one at a time in a manner such that the adjacent sheet is presented for easy grasping and removal from the dispenser. Efforts have been made to incorporate such dispensers with existing conventional rolled product dispensing fixtures so that the dispenser need not be separately mounted. Space for mounting additional fixtures is often not available in residential and commercial restrooms, and the like. Reference is made for example to U.S. Pat. No. 4,913,312 which describes a dispensing container for stacked individual sheets of tissue having a mounting mechanism on the sides of the container designed to engage with arms of conventional roll product fixtures. Certain embodiments of the mounting mechanisms described in the '312 patent are adjustable to account for variations in the design and configuration of the roll product fixtures.
Various premoistened tissue dispenser designs have also been proposed for use with existing bathroom roll product fixtures. For example, reference is made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,439,521; 5,897,074; 6,056,235, and WO 01/89935. Such dispensers are designed to convert or adapt the premoistened tissue sheet dispenser to operate with the dry rolled tissue dispenser fixture.
The present invention provides an alternative improved folded tissue sheet dispenser adapted for configuration with conventional roll product dispensing fixtures.