Appeal No. 95-1626
Application 07/804,013
This rejection is based on the examiner’s belief that
the invention as disclosed is inoperative and therefore lacks
utility. More particularly, the examiner asserts that a bias
can only refer to a voltage, and the permanent magnet of claim
1 cannot generate a bias voltage. The examiner also asserts
that the sources of voltage and current in claims 3 and 14
appear to be within the multilayer film with no external
sources which violates the laws of thermodynamics.
With respect to the first point raised by the
examiner, the specification of this application makes it clear
that the whole invention is based on the generation of a
magnetic bias field in an MR element multilayer film. The
examiner’s finding that a bias must be a voltage and cannot be
a magnetic field is unwarranted by the record in this case.
When the appealed claims use the term bias field, it is clear
that they are referring to a magnetic bias field. There is
nothing inoperative in the recitation of such a bias field.
With respect to the second point raised by the
examiner, claim 3 recites that a current flowing in a
nonferromagnetic metal layer of an MR element induces a bias
field which is applied to the multilayer film. We see no
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