Appeal No. 2001-2189
Application No. 09/060,636
THE REJECTIONS
Claims 1-18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Kasamatsu in view of Fontana.
Attention is directed to appellant’s main and reply briefs
(Paper Nos. 11 and 13) and to the examiner’s answer (Paper No.
12) for the respective positions of the appellant and the
examiner with regard to the merits of the rejection.
DISCUSSION
Kasamatsu, the examiner’s primary reference, discloses a
variety of slider embodiments for use in data storage systems.
Although each slider embodiment includes projections which
correspond to the feet recited in the appealed claims, the
examiner has determined (see page 4 in the answer) that these
projections do not respond to the limitations in the claims
pertaining to the variable hardness of the feet.2
Fontana relates to “magnetic recording disk files (or
‘drives’), and in particular to such files of the contact
recording type where the recording transducer (or ‘head’) is in
contact with the magnetic recording disk during read and write
2 Upon return of the application to the technology center,
the examiner should reassess this determination in light of the
projection embodiment shown and discussed by Kasamatsu in Figures
10(A)-(C) and column 15, lines 10-44.
3
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