Reclosable carton with tapered top closure

Claim 1

A prelined reclosable carton formed from a knocked-down tubular carton structure having opposing side and end walls with bottom closure flaps at their lowermost ends, a tubular liner in said carton having its mouth extending upwardly beyond the uppermost ends of said side and end walls, said liner being adhered to the opposing side walls of said carton as an incident of forming the knocked-down carton structure, said carton end walls being scored to define sets of bellows-like gussets extending downwardly from the uppermost edges of said end walls, each of said sets of gussets being defined by a centrally disposed vertical line of fold extending downwardly from the upper edge of the end wall in which it is formed, said vertical line of fold terminating at its bottom end in a pair of diagonally disposed lines of fold extending downwardly and outwardly to the opposite side edges of the end wall, said lines of fold defining an opposing pair of gussets connected to each other along said vertical line of fold, said sets of gussets, upon erection of said carton body walls relative to each other, being displaceable inwardly between said opposing side walls along said centrally disposed vertical lines of fold and said diagonally disposed lines of fold so as to cause the upper portions of the opposing side walls to flex inwardly relative to each other to form a tapered top closure in which the uppermost edges of said side walls are juxtaposed, said centrally disposed lines of fold, upon inward displacement of said gussets, defining folding edges acting to fold inwardly the portions of the liner mouth contacted thereby to form pleats lying between the opposite sides of the liner mouth, the opposite sides of the liner mouth being concurrently flattened by the upper ends of the side walls as they are flexed inwardly and juxtaposed, with the pleats engaged between the opposite sides of the flattened liner mouth, thereby automatically forming a neatly folded liner mouth as an incident of closing said carton, a closure flap hingedly connected to the upper edge of one of said side walls, said closure flap being infoldable over the uppermost edge of the other of said side walls, whereby as the said closure flap is infolded, the flattened and pleated liner mouth also will be folded over the upper edge of said other side wall, and means for releasably maintaining said closure flap in its folded over position, whereby the mouth of the liner is automatically folded and maintained in its folded condition to form a tight closure for the carton.