Appeal No. 2001-2189
Application No. 09/060,636
operations” (column 1, lines 6-10). According to Fontana, it is
“extremely difficult to assemble the disk file so that the head
pole piece is perfectly aligned and in complete contact with the
disk” (column 1, lines 47-49). To address this difficulty,
Fontana teaches:
a contact recording disk file with a head-suspension
assembly having a head carrier with a dual-layer wear
pad. The outer wear layer of the pad is relatively
soft compared to a harder inner wear layer. The outer
wear layer wears away at a relatively rapid rate during
initial wear-in of the head carrier. In this manner
the head pole piece, which extends into the wear pad,
is rapidly put into contact with the disk, thereby
compensating for initial misalignment of the wear pad
with the surface of the disk. In the preferred
embodiment, both the outer and inner wear layers are
formed of essentially amorphous carbon, with the inner
layer being doped with various amounts of hydrogen to
control wear resistance. In another embodiment the two
layers are formed as an essentially single continuous
layer, with the hydrogen concentration increasing or
decreasing across the thickness of the layer [column 1,
line 64 to column 2, line 12].
In proposing to combine Kasamatsu and Fontana to reject the
appealed claims, the examiner concludes that:
it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill
in the art at the time the invention was made to
provide the . . . feet of Kasamatsu et al (‘608) with a
hardness gradient as taught by Fontana, Jr. et al
(‘519). The rationale is as follows: one of ordinary
skill in the art would have been motivated to make the
. . . feet of the slider have a hardness gradient that
goes from hard to soft as the feet extend towards the
disk surface as doing this would protect the disk from
damage through contact with the feet because the soft
part of the feet would be able to wear away and
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