Importance

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Abstract

A dental floss dispenser in a card format formed by a base panel having a shallow well surrounded by a peripheral ridge, and a face panel superposed on the base panel and bonded to the ridge. Adjacent the front end of the face panel are an aperture and a miniature cutting blade. Nested in the well is a supply of dental floss constituted by an unsupported flattened helical coil. The floss filament from which the coil is wound has a starting end at the front of the coil, the filament at the rear of the coil passing internally through the coil to emerge from its front as a pull out lead which is threaded through the aperture in the face panel. The starting end of the coil is bonded to adjacent convolutions and thereby prevent unwinding of the unsupported coil. To obtain a useable length of floss, the user pulls on the lead to partially unwind the coil and then cuts off the length on the blade. The bed of the well and a corresponding area on the inner surface of the top panel are each coated with a layer of pressure-sensitive adhesive which adheres to the convolutions of the nested coil to maintain its position and integrity. The tackiness of the pressure-sensitive adhesive is such that when the lead is pulled out to partially unwind the coil, the floss filament is then released from the adhesive coating layers.

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First Claim