Appeal No. 95-3849
Application 08/029,549
The examiner applies Shiba in the rejection of claim 5
only for its teaching of a metal layer on the tape guide. It
appears that the examiner has overlooked relevant teachings in
Shiba. Shiba shows circumferential grooves like appellants'
preferred embodiment (specification, page 5), although no
grooves are claimed except in claim 6, which does not specify
the groove direction. Although nothing is said in Shiba about
the use of the grooves to reduce friction due to humidity, the
grooves in Shiba are for the purpose of reducing friction.
The crest height * in Shiba is from 5 to 20 µm. The elevated
rectangular portions in Shiba have a pitch of from 0.06 mm to
0.25 mm, which appears to satisfy the claimed pitch range of
0.050 mm # x # (329*) mm for * from 5 to 20 µm. It is noted0.25
that the prior art does not have to teach the expression
0.050 mm # x # (329*) mm, it only has to teach a crest pitch0.25
within the range. It is also noted that the claims do not
preclude the crest from being flat or any other shape. The
minimum crest height * of 5 µm is slightly outside the claimed
range of 0.2 to 3.0 µm. The maximum crest height is for
manufacturing reasons, and is not a function of the friction:
"where * > 3.0 µm, a significant influence is had on the
- 9 -
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007