Keyboard of elastic material for office machines

Claim 1

An office machine keyboard comprising a continuous layer of a first vulcanizable elastic material having a predetermined colour, a plurality of keys comprising an array of individually depressible reliefs formed in said layer, each relief including a top fingering surface raised above and parallel to the remainder of said keyboard layer and a curvilinear zone of said first elastic material surrounding said top surface of each said relief and having a smaller thickness than said top surface or the remainder of the layer, said zone sloping downwardly and then laterally away from said top surface toward said remainder of said layer to resiliently elastically connect said depressible relief to said remainder of said layer, said reliefs being depressible without distention of said connecting zone, and a set of characters, each one of a second vulcanizable elastic material, each character being positioned on the top fingering surface of one of said corresponding reliefs and being vulcanized to said first elastic material, whereby said characters are intimately connected to said reliefs.