Patent Publication Number: US-4545484-A

Title: Filing case

Description:
This invention relates to filing equipment, and more particularly to a filing case, especially suitable for diskettes, of the type having a bottom, sidewalls, and a plurality of divider plates spaced one behind the other, provided with projecting labelling tabs and, together with parts of the case bottom and sidewalls, bounding a compartment, each divider plate being provided with two mutually resilient legs, i.e., which can be resiliently moved toward one another, the free ends of which are insertable in slots in the case bottom, the slots associated with the legs of an individual divider plate lying in a straight line. 
     Besides the possiblity of providing an arrangement which is easy to take in at a glance, an important factor in file receptacles having a number of dividers, particularly a large number of them, is the cost price of the individual dividers. Production costs can be reduced by making it possible to use dividers which are identical in shape, and by using a shape which furthermore offers savings on material. 
     Filing cases of the foregoing type have been disclosed, e.g., in German Disclosed Application (DOS) No. 27 27692, and have dividers corresponding substantially in width to the distance between the two sidewalls. One drawback of such filing cases is that no appreciable saving on material is possible. Although the dividers are all identical, their symmetrical shape leads to an expenditure of material which it is intended to avoid by means of the present invention. 
     It is an object of this invention to provide an improved filing case which is very economical as compared with comparable file receptacles and can be made of a suitable plastic material. 
     To this end, in the filing case according to the present invention, of the type intially mentioned, the dividers formed identically to one another and asymmetrically and disposed in an even number are narrower at least approximately by the width of a labelling tab than the distance between two sidewalls. 
    
    
     A preferred embodiment of the invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawing, in which: 
     FIG. 1 is a perspective view of such a filing case, 
     FIG. 2 is a section, on a larger scale, taken on the line II--II of FIG. 3 through the first row of slots, and 
     FIG. 3 is a top plan view of the case bottom on a larger scale. 
    
    
     The embodiment illustrated, which is a filing case for diskettes or floppy disks, essentially comprises a box 1 having sidewalls 1a and 1b, a bottom 1c, and a hinged lid 1d, the latter being swivel-mounted in the two opposite sidewalls 1a and 1b for the purpose of closing and locking the filing case as a whole. 
     In case bottom 1c there are rows of slots 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, 4a, 4b, 5a, 5b, two slots each being disposed in straight lines 2 to 5, the individual lines 2-5 being situated one behind the other, and slots 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, 4a, 4b, 5a, 5b disposed in adjacent lines 2-5 being mutually offset. In the embodiment illustrated, it would also be possible to provide four slots in each straight line 2 to 5, in which case these slots would not be thus staggered but situated one behind the other in rows. 
     The compartments which are intended and suitable for receiving one filed diskette each are formed by dividers 6 to 9 (only the labelling tabs 8a and 9a of dividers 8 and 9 are visible in the drawing) together with the portions of case bottom 1c situated between the planes of the respective dividers and the two case sidewalls 1a and 1b. 
     Each divider 6-9 includes two downwardly projecting legs (designated as 1Oa, 1Ob, 11a, and 11b for dividers 6 and 7, respectively), a recess 12 between these legs, and a labelling tab, 6a-9a, disposed at one end of the top edge of each divider, projecting beyond that edge. The outer edge of each leg is further provided with a notch 13, these notches being designed to engage side edges of slots 2a to 4b. 
     Through the selection of a suitable plastic as the material of which dividers 6 to 9 are made, and of recess 12 between legs 1Oa and 1Ob of a divider, a resilient deformation is made possible in the sense that with application of force, the legs can be moved closer to each other in the plane of the respective divider by a certain amount, the dimensions being such that after such deformation, the two legs can be inserted in their proper slots, and the slot edges facing away from each other enter notches 13 of the respective legs for the purpose of fixing the position of the dividers after the application of force has ceased. 
     The dimension of mutual offsetting of slots 2a to 5b of adjacent straight lines 2 to 5 corresponds at least approximately to the width of labelling tabs 6a to 9a, so that the tabs of adjacent dividers 6-9, the legs of which are inserted in the same of a straight line 2 to 5, come to lie next to one another. Analogous relative position of tab 8a and 9a are achieved by turning the third and fourth dividers around, i.e., reversing their orientation by 180°, before inserting them in slots 4a-4b and 5a-5b, respectively. Because all the dividers are identical in shape and size, the tabs 6a to 9a of the four dividers illustrated assume the relative positions shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, i.e., the tabs form a row visible one next to another when the dividers are inserted as described one behind another. 
     In an embodiment having slots 2a through 5b not mutually offset, but in rows one behind the other, only the first and third slots of the first straight line 2 will be used, only the second and fourth slots in line 3, again the first and third slots of line 4, the second and fourth slots of line 5, etc., for inserting the legs of adjacent dividers. 
     An embodiment wherein the rows of slots are staggered as shown in FIG. 3 is, however, to be preferred because the space between slots can then be made very narrow (as is desirable for filing thin single objects such as diskettes) without weakening the portions of the case bottom subsisting between the individual slots. If all rows of slots are aligned, they cannot be disposed so close to one another as with a staggered arrangement. 
     Other possibilities would be to provide more than two slots per straight line 2 to 5, just as more than four dividers may be disposed to form a continuous row of labelling tabs, insofar as the number of the dividers whose labelling tabs come to be situated next to one another in a row is an even number. 
     The invention makes it possible to use identical dividers for a whole filing case, with some inserted as mirror images of the others. The reduction in production costs made possible by the identical size and shape of the dividers becomes even greater because of the recess provided to achieve the resilient properties of the divider legs inasmuch as this recess also represents a not inconsiderable saving on material.