Appeal 2007-3546
Application 10/418,180
addition would provide as well as for the other known properties that Ag
would had been expected to possess and furnish upon addition to the RE-TM
layer.
As for Appellants’ contentions with regard to a lack of a disclosure in
the applied references that Ag addition to the magnetic recording layer
would facilitate domain wall fixing, we note that the Examiner’s basis for
the combination need not be for the same reasons as Appellants disclose.
See In re Kemps, 97 F.3d 1427, 1430, 40 USPQ2d 1309, 1311 (Fed. Cir.
1996) (the motivation to combine features need not be identical to that of
appellant to establish a prima facie case of obviousness).
On this regard, we affirm the Examiner’s first stated obviousness
rejection.
In rejecting claims 5, 6, 12, and 13 as obvious to one of ordinary skill
in the art at the time of the invention, the Examiner additionally relies on
Tanahashi. Appellants argue these rejected claims as a group. Thus, we
select claim 5 as the representative claim.
Dependent claim 5, requires that the perpendicular magnetic recording
medium of claim 1 further includes a soft magnetic under layer between the
substrate and the intermediate layer, one or more undercoating layers
between the substrate and the soft magnetic under layer, and a domain
controlling layer located between the under layer(s) and the soft magnetic
layer.
The Examiner relies on Tanahashi for disclosing a domain controlling
layer (anti-ferromagnetic layer) between a soft magnetic layer and an under
layer (one of the three domain control layers) in a perpendicular magnetic
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013