RECORDING MEDIUM DISC STORAGE JEWEL CASE
Technical Field.
The present invention relates to a two piece storage Jewel Case for packaging two Recording Medium Discs having musical, visual or optically readable digital information recorded therein.
Background Art
The storage cases as per the known prior art are constructed to support a disc only at its central area free of information carrying tracks and not to contact the area containing information carrying tracks of the disc by providing a predetermined clearance there between, so as not to transfer any deformation of the case to the disc.
Thus, this construction requires that the storage case has a higher rigidity so as to minimize its possible deformation, and make such clearance relatively large. This results in a drawback that the case has a relatively large thickness.
In the Japanese unexamined patent application no. SHO 60-148485, the invention employs a structure for supporting the disc at both the central and outer peripheral areas thereof, other structures, particularly for holding the central hole portion of the disc, remain conventional and, hence, it is impossible to decrease the thickness of the storage case.
There is another prior art reference which provides a storage case which is capable of holding a disc at its central hole portion with a reduced force, holding the disc securely, and allowing the disc to be removed there from by a one-touch operation.
Further, the above said prior art provides a recording medium disc storage case comprising a holding plate for covering a recording side of a recording medium disc having a central hole, the holding plate having a holding portion to be removably fitted into the central hole of the disc, the holding portion including a base extending from an inner periphery of a perforation defined centrally of the holding plate, extensions extending circumferentially from the base, and projections each radially outwardly projecting from an end portion of each of the extensions. The projections have respective tips defining a circular envelope having a diameter greater than that

of the central hole of the disc, and the extensions have an outer diameter such as to be fitted in the central hole of the disc.
There are several Jewel Cases available in the market which contain 'Trays' and can hold up to 3 discs (CDs or DVDs)
Generally, a typical Jewel Case assembly comprises of three (3) parts viz, a Base Plate, an Upper Lid and a Tray which is fixed between the Base Plate and an Upper Lid. It is the Tray which sustains the disc/s in the holding arrangement. Accordingly, the Tray is the main part on which the disc is placed. This makes the process cumbersome and increases the cost of the material used in the process.
There are several drawbacks in a typical Jewel Case with a TRAY.
Explained below is the comparison chart of 'typical jewel case with a tray' with 'the new jewel case as per this invention which is without a Tray'.



S. No.

Typical Jewel Case with a Tray

Our Jewel Case without Tray



1

This is a 3 part design
This design needs extra molding, handling and assembly of the tray

This is a 2 part design
As there is no Tray, no extra molding, handling and assembly is required.



High cost impact in terms of molding machine, packaging machine and assembler is there as all these will require a high level of investment

No such high investment is required as Tray is merged with the bottom plate.



Investment for an extra mold has to happen to mold the extra part i.e. tray; hence again a cost impact

No extra mold is required



One more major cost impact is in terms of raw material saving as each and every tray needs around 19g of raw material

No Tray, hence major cost saving and highly economical.



It is quite possible that in case of mishandling of 3-part design, the locks between Tray and the respective bottom plate may break and then it becomes too

No such possibility is there as there is no Tray and hence any locks.

difficult to place the disc in the jewel case. The result will be that if such a jewel case is opened, most of the times the Tray may fall down damaging the storage media; defeating the main purpose of the jewel case which is to protect the storage media
Objects of the Invention
The object of this invention is to provide a Jewel Case with only two parts viz., a Base Plate and an Upper Lid which can rotate at 180 ° without having the third element viz., the Tray. This invention provides a Central Jaw built on the Base Plate of the Jewel Case. The said Jaw is cylindrical in shape which provides a mechanism to place two discs one above the other without damaging each other.
Another object of this invention is to provide a special Central Cylindrical Jaw at the Base plate of the Jewel Case which provides a mechanism to sustain two discs having sufficient force to sustain the said two discs in an inverted position.
Another object of this invention is to reduce plastic parts and several other processes related thereto employed in the manufacture of a typical Jewel Case. The 'Tray' part is completely eliminated which tremendously helps in reducing the use of plastic in CD / DVD packaging.
Description of Invention
According to the present invention, the base plate of the Jewel Case has a Central Cylindrical Jaw (Figure 1) built in the centre of the Base Plate. The Central Jaw has a hinge built along the height of the Jaw running parallel in the Base Plate. The height of the Central Jaw is increased to accommodate two discs. The said Jaw provides a good fit to the discs to prevent the discs from falling when the Jaw is in an inverted position.

As shown in the figures, there is one hinge which stops the storage media to come out of the central cylindrical jaw. There is no gap between two discs; the top disc directly rests on the bottom disc on its stack ring which is a line contact at non-storage area or idle area
Fig. 1 shows a protruded hub with 5 no. of V - shaped profiled cutouts to incorporate spring action of the jaws while disc is inserted and extracted. Very small projections are made on all the five flexible jaws so that the disc may not fall while the base is inverted.
Fig. 2.1 explains the exact profile from the top view the v-shaped cutouts which are five in number.
Fig 2.2 shows the sectioned view of the hub with all the dimensions which are unique to accommodate 2 discs with a force that the discs should not fall, if inverted.
Fig. 3 explains 'how to operate' the center hub. This figure explains the procedure how to get the two discs out of the Jewel Case bottom. The center hubs should be pressed slightly with the point finger and the respective discs should be picked up or pulled out with the help of middle finger and the thumb of the same hand as shown in fig.3.

Claims
1. A recording medium disc storage Jewel Case comprising a Base Plate and an Upper Lid, the
Base Plate covering one side of the recording medium disc having a central hole, the said
Base Plate has a Central Cylindrical Jaw, the said Cylindrical Jaw has a Hinge built along the
height of the said Jaw running parallel to the base plate to hold the two recording medium
discs one above the other without damaging each other.
2. A recording medium disc storage Jewel Case as set forth in claim 1, wherein the Central
Cylindrical Jaw has a height of 4.30 (+0.10 / -0.0) millimeters.
3. A recording medium disc storage Jewel Case as set forth in claim 1, wherein the Central
Cylindrical Jaw has a diameter of 15.30 at the hinge, 14.99 at the bottom and 14.77at the top
as shown in Fig 2.2 in millimeters.
4. A recording medium disc storage Jewel Cylindrical Case as set forth in claim 1, wherein the
distance between the base plate and the hinge from the bottom is 3.33 millimeters.
5. A recording medium disc storage Jewel Cylindrical Case as set forth in claim 1, wherein the
Jewel Case when closed prevents the dust particles to enter the Jewel Case.
6. A recording medium disc storage Jewel Cylindrical Case as set forth in claim 1, wherein the
total thickness of the closed Jewel Case is 10.2 millimeters.
7. A recording medium disc storage Jewel Cylindrical Case as set forth in claim 1, wherein the
Central Cylindrical Jaw provides sufficient fit to the discs to prevent them from falling down
when the Jaw is in an inverted position.