This invention broadly relates to commercial transaction forms and more particularly concerns a form implemented as a two separable, mother and counterfoil, sections, wherein said counterfoil section is separable from said mother section and is foldable and closeable, so as to be adapted to bear confidential information, intended to be only accessible to the addressee and final user of said section.

There are a large number of commercial transactions wherein a form is used consisting of two sections, generally designated as mother and counterfoil sections, providing that the mother section is held by the party offering a service or a product, while the counterfoil section is held by the party receiving and utilizing said service or product.

There are, however, some circumstances of use of said mother and counterfoil section forms wherein the relationship between the party offering a service or a product and the party purchasing said service or product includes one or more "personalized" items which should be written in such forms but, in the same time, should be kept secret or at least should be only accessible to a very restricted number of people. If, on one hand, this requirement can raise no problem for the party purchasing the service or the product, because he/she is free to handle the counterfoil section according to his/her needs and is also free to take care of it in optimum manner, noticeable problems are raised for the party offering the service the product, because such party should be provided with suitable personnel entrusted to handle such commercial transactions and, therefore, subject to particular bonds of confidentiality. In view of the above and aiming, therefore, at releasing such party from said personnel restrictions and at putting it in condition to entrust handling said commercial transactions involving confidential data or information items also to generic personnel or to agencies external to its organized staff, it would be useful and convenient to provide a two section form, namely a mother and counterfoil section form, having at least a section, usually the section designated as counterfoil section, adapted to bear confidential codes or data, only accessible to the final user of the concerned service or product.

It is an object of this invention to fulfill this requirement. This object is achieved by means of a two separable, mother and counterfoil, section form, with self-enveloping counterfoil section, adapted to bear confidential information, wherein said mother section is realized as a single piece and is connected to the counterfoil section by means of a transversal tear line, while the counterfoil section consists of multiple portions successively foldable along folding lines, respectively, said counterfoil section having marginal glue stripes along its longitudinal edges, so as to leave a central glue-free area, and suitably positioned for maintaining said component portions in closed and glued condition along a first and a second longitudinal sides, as well as two longitudinal tear lines intended to separate the central area from the marginal glue stripes in order to permit said counterfoil section to be opened and said component portions thereof to be unfolded. Further particulars and advantages as well as characteristics and construction details will be evident from the following description with reference to enclosed drawings wherein the preferred embodiments are shown by way of illustration and not by way of limitation. In the drawings: Figure 1 is a view of the form according to this invention in unfolded condition;

Figure 2 is a view similar to Figure 1 showing a second embodiment;

Figure 3 is a view of a form according to this invention, either in its first or in its second embodiment, in folded and closed condition.

By referring now to the drawings and particularly to Figure 1 , it can be seen that the form according to this invention comprises a mother section A and a counterfoil section B, connected along a transversal tear line 10. The mother section A is made as a single portion and includes, in addition to a serial number, by which the concerned commercial transaction is biuniquely identified, all information needed in said transaction. This section is held by the party offering the service or the product of the transaction.

The counterfoil section B, instead, is the section that is held by the party purchasing the product or utilizing the service and it is the section that possibly includes personalized or confidential information which should be accessible only to said user party.

Just by way of example, which is only reported to aid understanding a practical application case and without any intention to restrict thereto the utilization possibilities of the forms according to this invention, the sale of subscription to information access services can be mentioned, wherein it is required that special telephone numbers be called and/or special access and/or identification codes be assigned. In view of the confidentiality of the involved information and in view of the severity of the consequences that could be caused by a fraudulent use thereof, such transactions are handled at the present state of the art by responsible personnel and it is unimaginable that they are handled by generic personnel or through external channels not included in the organization of the offering agency and not entitled at the same confidentiality level.

A further example that can be mentioned is the case of the sale of instantaneous lottery tickets of the so-called "scrape-and-win" type, wherein the winning information should be inaccessible and unknown till after the sale and only after the sale is perfected the purchaser can gain access to the information.

In its preferred embodiment, the counterfoil section B is divided in three portions 11 , 12 and 13 that can be folded upon themselves by means of successive folding operations, such that, upon completing the folding operations, the external portion 13 is closed inwardly and, therefore, it is hidden and the whole assembly appears as it is shown in Figure 3. Aiming at achieving this effect, two folding lines 14 and 15 are provided.

In addition to the transversal tear line 10 designed to separate mother section A from counterfoil section B, two longitudinal marginal tear lines 16 and 17 are provided, extending along the whole length of said counterfoil section B. Suitable glue stripes are provided in convenient positions at the free margins between the longitudinal tear lines 16 and 17 and the adjacent edges, in order to close the edges of the counterfoil section B upon folding it.. As a matter of fact the glue stripes are applied to the upper margins (with respect to the drawing sheet) as far as portions 12 and 13 are concerned, for the first folding operation, and to the upper margins of portion 11 and to the lower margins of portion 13, for the second folding operation.

From a functional view point, it can now be understood that portions 11 , 12 and 13 effectively form a closed self-enveloping section and, as such, they are adapted to include confidential information access to which can be gained only by opening said section. As a matter of fact, the concerned commercial transaction will be perfected by separating folded, closed and glued counterfoil section B from its mother section A and by delivering it to the purchaser or user of the service or product. The purchaser or user, in turn, will divide the glued margins by means of a tear operation along said tear lines 16 and 17 and he/she can thereby unfold said three portions 11, 12 and 13 and gain access to the contents thereof.

If desired, one of said three portions, for instance portion 13, which will be placed inwardly, upon being unfolded, can be used as a card, such as a credit card or like, and it can be made separable by the remaining portions by implementing said folding line 15 as a tear line, as well. The same thing can be effected by obvious adaptations, should it be desired to use for the same or similar object the other two portions 11 or 12.

Of course, among the transaction information items that should be entered into counterfoil section B, into one or more of its component portions, a serial number should be included for biuniquely relate the counterfoil section to its respective mother section.

Should it be desired or needed, a further glue stripe could be provided also adjacent to the transversal tear line 10, in order to close also the related side of said "self-enveloped" counterfoil section B. The possible displacement of tear line 10 or the additional insertion of a further tear line parallel to line 10 are further expedients that are obvious to all those skilled in the art to complete the embodiments of this invention. A further embodiment of this invention is shown in Figure 2, wherein counterfoil section B is more simply made of two portions 11' and 12' rather than three. This embodiment as well any adaptations thereof do not need further particular explanations in view of all explanations already given in respect of the embodiment of Figure 1. It is not believed necessary to provide further particular indications of the information and data to be entered into said two sections A and B, because they are not per se part of this invention and

can effectively be of any kind, depending on the commercial transaction effected by means of the forms according to this invention.

Only by way of indicative example, the possibility can be mentioned to use the described forms for subscription services to data banks and the like, wherein confidential telephone numbers or access codes should be allotted to the purchaser. The form according to this invention enables the sales to be handled with full safety also by personnel not bound to confidentiality restrictions and even by external channels not included in the organization of the offering agency. Those skilled in the art will appreciate the large range of possible applications, and any list thereof could in no way be exhaustive.

The preferred embodiments of this invention have been described and a number of variations have been suggested hereinbefore, but it should expressly be understood that those skilled in the art can make other variations and changes, without so departing from the scope thereof.