A known dispensers for drinking water for use in offices and the like comprises a cooler unit with an internal reservoir, a refrigerating unit for cooling water in the reservoir and a tap for dispensing the chilled water from the reservoir into a drinking vessel. Water is supplied to the reservoir from a replaceable bottle which is inverted on the top of the cooler unit, the neck of the bottle being placed in a funnel-shaped inlet to the reservoir at the top of the cooler unit.

The bottles are typically of about 18-20 litres capacity and are filled with purified or mineral water. When all the water in the bottle has been dispensed the empty bottle is removed and replaced by another full bottle.

Usually a supply of full bottles is kept at the site and from time to time the supplier will deliver a fresh supply of filled bottles and collect the empty bottles for cleaning and refilling.

The known bottles have a body which is circular in cross section and a neck which is joined to the cylindrical body of the bottle by a sloping upper end portion. The bottles are blow moulded from a plastics material such as polycarbonate. A plastics cap fits over the top of the neck to close the bottle whilst it is in transit or storage. When the bottle is inverted on the top of the chiller unit, the sloping upper end portion of the bottle rests in a concave recess in the top of the cooler unit around the funnel-shaped inlet.

There are several disadvantage with the known bottles.

They are normally stored in crates or racks, which take up space and are often unsightly. They are difficult to lift and manouevre into position on the cooler unit because of their bulk and weight when full.

According to the present invention in a first aspect, there is provided a bottle for water for a dispenser of drinking water comprising a body portion, a neck joined to the top of the body portion, a bottom wall joined to the lower end of the body portion, recesses being formed in the side walls of the body, the recess forming overhangs which serve as handles for lifting the bottle.

Preferably the overhang is sufficiently large to accommodate the tips of the fingers of one hand. The overhang may be at least 25mm wide and may extend for at least 80mm of the circumference of he bottle.

According to the present invention in a second aspect, there is provided a bottle for water for a dispenser of drinking water comprising a body portion, a neck joined to the top of the body portion, a bottom wall joined to the lower end of the body portion, the bottom wall being provided with a central reentrant portion to form a cavity in the underside of the bottle which can accommodate the neck portion of an identical bottle.

With this arrangement bottles may be stacked on top of one another when being stored, without a need for racks or crates. By avoiding the use of crates the footprint of each stack of bottles is smaller than that for bottles of similar size in crates and therefore more stacks can be placed in a given space.

The presence of a cavity in the bottom of the bottle large enough to accommodate the neck of an identical bottle makes the bottle easier to lift and manouevre than the known bottle. The fingers of one hand may be curled round the bottom wall of the bottle into the cavity to get a better grip.

Preferably the bottom wall surrounding the reentrant portion has a convexly curved radial cross-section when viewed from below. The neck of the bottle is preferably shorter than that of the known bottle so that the cavity does not have to be too deep for ease of moulding. The upper end portion of the bottle which joins the neck to the cylindrical side wall of the bottle is preferably squatter than in the known design, again to reduce the depth of the cavity and to ensure that the line of contact between the top of one bottle and the bottom of the adjacent bottle when stacked is as far as practical from the vertical axis of the bottles for stability of the stack.

The reentrant portion may have a generally frusto-conical shape.

The cavity may also facilitate handling of the bottle. By making the cavity sufficiently large for the fingers of one hand to be inserted, the cavity may be used to grip the bottle, particularly when tilting the bottle to invert it over the cooler unit. Preferably the reentrant portion is joined to the surrounding annular portion of the bottom wall by a curved portion. This makes the bottle comfortable to hold and facilitates moulding.

Another feature of the present invention is that the body portion of the bottle has a flattened or oval horizontal

cross section. This feature also makes the bottle easier to handle, particularly when tilting the bottle to install it in the dispenser.

When the bottle has the recesses to form overhangs and the body is oval, the recesses preferably lie on a major horizontal axis of the bottle. The recesses may be formed by a section of lesser radial distance from the vertical axis of the bottle but greater radius of curvature than the adjacent wall above and below the recess. The recesses may be saddle-shaped for ease of moulding.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, of which: Fig 1 shows a front elevation of a water bottle according to the invention: Fig 2 shows a side elevation of the water bottle of Fig 1: Fig 3 shows an underneath plan view of the bottle of Figs 1 and 2: Fig 4 shows, on a reduced scale, a stack of two identical bottles as shown in Fig 1 and 2: and Fig 5 shows in schematic form a bottle as shown in Figs 1 and 2 installed on a dispenser.

A bottle 10 is blow moulded in one piece from a plastics material, for example, polycarbonate. The bottle is generally oval in shape when viewed in plan having a major horizontal dimension which is approximately 20% greater than its minor horizontal dimension. The drawings show a

bottle of 18 litres capacity which is 470mm tall and 282mm x234 mm in overall plan.

The bottle 10 has a neck 12 which is joined to the upper end of the body 14 of the bottle. The body comprises an upper portion 16, a middle portion 18 and a bottom portion 20. The upper portion 16 and the bottom portion 20 are of larger transverse dimensions than the middle portion so that the wall of the middle portion is set in from the side walls of the upper and lower portions. In the example the upper and lower portions stand approximately 7mm proud of the middle portion. This arrangement protects the middle portion from scuffing when bottles are stood next to one another.

The neck is formed with a lip 21 and a raised annular rib 23 for retaining a snap-on plastics cap (not shown) for sealing the bottle when full and in transit or storage.

The upper portion 16 has an upper end wall 22 which slopes down from the base 24 of the neck 12 and is joined at it lower outer end to an oval-sectioned cylindrical side wall 26 of the upper portion by a convexly curved shoulder 28.

In the example the upper wall has a straight slope and slopes at 17 degrees to the horizontal along the major transverse axis of the bottom and 23 degrees along the minor transverse axis.

The middle portion 18 forms the major part of the vertical height of the bottle. It has a generally oval-sectioned cylindrical side wall 30 which is joined at its upper end to the side wall 26 of the upper portion by a wall portion 32 that slopes outwardly from bottom to top and to a side wall 34 of the bottom portion 20 by a wall portion 36 that slopes outwardly from top to bottom.

The side wall 34 of the bottom portion is also of oval-sectioned cylindrical shape and is joined to a bottom end wall 38 by a convexly curved wall 40 which forms the bottom edge of the bottle.

The middle portion of the bottle is formed with raised ribs 42 and grooves 44 which extend part way round the bottle following a curved path. The ribs 42 and grooves 44 add stiffness to the wall 30 of the middle portion 18.

The ribs also protect any labels attached to the planar sections of the wall of the middle portion from scuffing.

The ribs do not project outwardly from the vertical axis of the bottle as far as the upper and lower portions. In the example they project 5mm.

Parts of the bottle body which are most likely to come into contact with other objects may be give an etched or stippled finish to make them resistant to scuffing. In the embodiment, the cylindrical side walls 26 and 34, the shoulder 28, the ribs 42, the bottom edge wall 40 and the bottom end wall 38 are all stippled.

A cavity 46 is formed in the underside of the bottle by a central reentrant portion 48 of the bottom end wall. The cavity is large enough to accommodate the ends of the fingers of one hand. The portion 48 has a steeply sloping conical side wall 50 which is closed at its upper end by a domed end wall 52. In the example the slope has an angle of 77.5 degrees to the horizontal. The reentrant portion has a generally frusto-conical shape and is circular in horizontal section. The side wall 50 of the reentrant portion is joined at its lower end to an annular portion 54 of the bottom wall by a curved wall portion 56. The curved wall portion 56 is flared out along a major horizontal axis so that it joins the annular portion along an oval line. The depth of the cavity 46 is greater than

the height of the neck 12 and the diameter of the cavity is greater than the diameter of the neck so that the neck of an identical bottle can be accommodated in the cavity with clearance. In the example the neck is 45mm high whereas the cavity is 69mm deep at the centre. The bottle rests on the annular portion 54 when stood on the ground.

When the bottles are stacked the line of contact between the upper end wall 22 of one bottle and the curved wall portion 56 of the adjacent bottle is oval.

A projection 60 is formed on the underside of the reentrant portion and a recess 62 is formed in the upper side of the upper end wall 22. The recess of one bottle can receive the projection 60 of another when rested so as to locate the two bottles relative to one another about the vertical axis and ensure that the two bottles are orientated in the most stable position where the two bottles touch one another all the way round.

Two recesses 58 are formed on opposite sides of the body.

The recess are located in the wall 30 at the upper end of the middle portion 18 immediately below the sloping wall that forms the transition between the upper and middle portions 16 and 18. The recesses lie on a major horizontal axis of the bottle. The recesses are elongate, the circumferential dimension of each recess being greater than its vertical dimension. The upper sides 64 of the recesses form overhangs which may be used as a pair of handles for lifting the bottle. Each overhang is wide enough to receive the tips of four fingers. In the embodiment the overhang is 30 mm at its widest point. Each recess overhangs by at least 25mm over a length of at least 80 mm around the bottle. The recess extends for approximately 50 mm in the vertical direction. The projection of the overhang 64 formed by the recess is

greater than the overhang formed by the sloping portion 32 which extends all round the bottle.

The recesses may be formed by reducing the outside diameter of the bottle in a region along a major horizontal axis for a section of the height of the bottle immediately below the sloping wall portion 32. The wall 66 in the region of the recess is still convexly curved in a horizontal plane. As can be seen from Fig 3, this forms a recess without the horizontal. section having any sections around the circumference in the horizontal section, which are concave. In other words, the recesses are saddle shaped, that is they are concave along a vertical plane and convex along horizontal plane. The construction enables the recesses to be formed without making moulding unduly difficult The provision for the cavity in the underside of the bottle enables the bottle to be stacked with identical bottles when being stored, as shown in Fig 4. The neck 12 of the lower bottle is nested in the cavity 46 in the underside of the upper bottle. The inner edge of the annular portion 54 of the bottom wall 38 rests on the sloping upper end wall of the lower bottle. By curving the wall 56 so that the line of contact between the two bottles is as far as possible from the centre axis, the stack is given great stability.

The construction enables the bottles to be stacked without crates or racks, which means that more bottles can be stored in a given space. Normally only two bottles will be stacked on top of one another when full, but the bottles may be stacked three or more high when empty.

For ease of moulding, the cavity in the underside of the bottle should be made as shallow as possible whilst being

large enough to accommodate the neck 12. It is therefore desirable to make the neck as short as possible consistent with its function. In the embodiment the neck of the bottle is 45mm high which is shorter than the neck of the known bottles. The known bottles have a relatively long concavely curved transition portion joining the neck to the upper end wall of the bottle. In the embodiment described there is no such transition portion between the neck and the sloping upper end of the bottle. The vertical distance from the top of the neck to the top of the cylindrical side wall is about 100mm compared with about 180mm for the known bottle. The neck and upper end construction of the known bottle would require a much deeper cavity in the underside of the bottle for stacking.

The bottle described above is also easier to handle than the known bottle. The handles formed by the recess 58 enable the bottle to be gripped more easily when lifting.

The cavity in the bottom of the bottle also provides a convenient place to grip the bottle when inverting the bottle for use in a dispenser as showing in Fig 5. The fingers of one hand may be inserted into the cavity and the annular portion at the bottom of the bottle may be gripped between thumb and fingers, the thumb resting on the side wall 34 or the ledge formed by the sloping portion 36.

The flattened cross section arising from the oval shape also makes the bottle easier to invert because by rotating the bottle about a major horizontal axis when inverting it is not necessary to lift the bottom edge where the bottle is griped as high as with a conventional circular cylindrical bottle of similar volume. The shorter neck and squatter upper end wall also means that the bottle does not have to be lifted so high to clear the

edge of the top of the dispenser when inserting the neck of the bottle into the inlet to the reservoir.

The interior of the bottle is free of sharp curves which make the bottles easy to mould and easy to clean and sanitise.

Fig. 5 shows a water dispenser 70 fitted with a bottle according to the invention. The dispenser has an internal reservoir 72 with a refrigerating unit 74. An open funnel-shaped inlet 76 is provided at the top of the unit to receive the neck 12 of an inverted bottle. The top of the unit has a concave recess 78 of oval shape for receiving part of the top end of the inverted bottle. The bottle rests with its top end wall supported on the edge of the recess 78.