Appeal No. 95-3849
Application 08/029,549
We refer to the Final Rejection (Paper No. 9) (pages
referred to as "FR__") and the Examiner's Answer (Paper
No. 15) (pages referred to as "EA__") for a statement of the
examiner's position and to the Brief (Paper No. 14) (pages
referred to as "Br__") for appellants' position.
OPINION
Initially, the examiner clearly errs in finding that
"Tollefson discloses a tape guide apparatus having a guide
member (14, 19) including a roughened surface which appears to
comprise 'substantial' parallel grooves (see column 4,
line 67) of which the pitch length is 0.010 mm (see column 5,
line 28), as set forth in claims 1 and 6" (EA3-4). First,
Tollefson does not hint at parallel "grooves": the measured
roughness numbers are for random peaks due to the molding
process, not grooves. The surface in Tollefson is not
intentionally made rough. Second, the 10 µm (0.010 mm)
dimension is the peak-to-peak distance, which corresponds to
"the height * of the crests" in claim 1, not the pitch length
x as found by the examiner. Since the peaks in Tollefson are
randomly distributed, no pitch distance is implied or
disclosed. The 10 µm height is not within the claimed range
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