Appeal No. 1998-0261
Application No. 08/438,319
BACKGROUND
The invention is directed to a thin-film magneto-resistive magnetic recording head. Claim 1 is
reproduced below.
1. A multi-element read-write magnetic recording head for recording information on a magnetic
tape and for reading recorded information therefrom, said recording head comprising an equal number
of associated read elements and write elements to form a two-gap recording head comprising pairs of
read and write elements, said two-gap recording head further comprising a first module and a second
module, said first and second modules each comprising a plurality of read and write head elements, with
a first group of read and write heads configured to perform in a forward direction of movement of said
magnetic tape and with a second group of read and write heads configured to perform in a reverse
direction of movement of said magnetic tape, one of said modules containing an equal number of
forward read heads and reverse write heads and the other of said modules containing an equal number
of reverse read heads and forward write heads, to provide decoupling of reading and writing functions
and to enable servoing by a given read element of a write element associated therewith.
The examiner relies on the following reference:
Schwarz 5,331,493 Jul. 19, 1994 (filed Aug. 21, 1992)
Claims 1 and 5-8 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102 as being anticipated by Schwarz.
Claims 2-4 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Schwarz.
We refer to the Final Rejection (Paper No. 6) and the Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 14) for a
statement of the examiner's position and to the Brief (Paper No. 13) and the Reply Brief (Paper No.1
15) for appellants’ position.
1We have not considered an initial brief filed January 23, 1997 that was determined to lack
compliance with 37 CFR § 1.192(c).
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