Ice cream carton

Claim 1

An easily opened paperboard carton construction, comprising: a front wall, a bottom wall, a rear wall, opposed end walls and a top cover panel hingedly attached along one edge to the upper edge of the rear wall and having a front cover panel hingedly attached to the opposite edge of said top cover panel and overlapping the upper portion of the front wall when the carton is erected, said front cover panel having a pair of parallel weakness lines spaced from a free edge of said front cover panel and defining a tear strip, said free edge being adherent to said front wall; a release liner for said top cover panel, comprising uniaxially oriented polymer film affixed along one edge thereof to the interior surface of said rear wall, said film extending to substantially completely cover the interior surface of said top cover panel and being affixed to the inner surface of said front cover panel in the region thereof between said weakness lines, said film being uniaxially oriented to the extent that it exhibits tensile strength in the orientation direction that is substantially greater than the tensile strength in the direction perpendicular to the orientation direction, said film having a with-grain to cross-grain tensile stength ratio greater than 1.5 to 1 and a maximum elongation in both with-grain and cross-grain directions of no more than 150%; and the with-grain direction of said film being substantially aligned with said weakness lines, and said film extending along the entire length of the tear strip region to which it is affixed, thereby strengthening the tear strip to facilitate its complete removal, and ensuring tearing of the tear strip along said weakness lines, preparatory to hingedly opening said top cover panel.