Appeal No. 2000-1890
Application 08/828,297
states. We agree with the examiner that such a product claim can
be read on the second state of the product and the manner in
which the second state was attained has no patentable relevance
to the product itself. Therefore, the claimed reasons why the
mass balancing structures are reconfigured are not relevant to
the configurable product recited in claim 1. The final product
recited in claim 1 does not require that any measurements
actually be made to define the product. Claim 1 only requires
that a disk drive suspension have one or more mass balancing
structures (tabs) which have been moved from a first
configuration (unbent) to a second configuration (bent). This
product as broadly recited in claim 1 is fully met by Hinlein.
Therefore, we sustain the examiner’s rejection of claims 1-8, 10
and 12.
We reach the opposite result with respect to claims 13-
15. Claims 13-15 recite a specific location of the mass
balancing structures with respect to the second torsion node
location of the structure. Appellant and the examiner agree that
Hinlein has no mention of a second torsion node location. The
examiner relies on the fact that the suspension in Hinlein
inherently has the first and second torsion nodes and the claims
do not recite where the second torsion node is located. The
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