Appeal No. 96-3893
Application 08/063,302
had a result that less material was required to provide
the desired flux guiding characteristics. Both Terada
and Ihara support the above contentions in that they
utilize such materials to form their magnetic
transducing gaps as opposed to having the transducing
gaps formed by block magnetic materials.
At page 9 of the Answer, the examiner additionally relies on
Sakata to show that it was known to form magnetic thin films by
sputtering:
[O]ne of ordinary skill in the art would have been
cognizant of the fact that thin film ferrite was a
substitute to block form ferrite. . . . Sakata serves
as evidence, for example, of the use of sputtering to
form magnetic thin films (note column 5 - line 23
concerning the formation of magnetic thin film layers).
Ihara also serves as evidence of the notoriety of
forming a magnetic thin film via a method such as
sputtering (column 5 - line 40).
The examiner's position is not persuasive. While he argues that
it would have been obvious to replace Terada's ferrite blocks
with soft ferrite films, the cited prior art discussions of film
formation on which he relies relate only to films of metal
magnetic materials, which though "soft" are not ferrite magnetic
materials. Specifically, Ihara's discussion of sputtering at
column 5, lines 36-42 relates to metal magnetic material 3 and
Sakata's discussion of sputtering at col. 5, lines 21-25 concerns
the metal films 5 and 6. As a result, the cited parts of Ihara
and Sakata do not demonstrate that it was known to form films of
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