Appeal No. 1998-0252
Application No. 08/555,795
specified order goes to the method of organizing the filing
system and not to establishing a “functional relationship”
between the indicia and the sheet. The fact of the matter is
that Colavito teaches exactly what the appellant recites in
claim 1, that is, placing colored labels containing specified
indicia upon an elongated sheet in a particular order. The
difference between the structure disclosed in the reference
and that which is recited in claim 1 resides only in the
content of the indicia which, in this case, is entitled to no
patentable weight.
This conclusion is confirmed in the language of the
claims themselves. The extent of the relationship between the
elongated sheet and the indicia as recited in claim 1 is that
the three areas of the sheet are “adapted for receiving” the
indicia. From our perspective, claim 1 therefore requires
merely that the sheet be capable of receiving the indicia in
the manner specified in the final six lines of the claim. In
our opinion, not only does this language fail to support the
appellant’s argument that the “functional relationship”
between the structure and the indicia required to impart
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