Appeal No. 95-5142
Application 08/078,917
it useful as a permanent magnet film for biasing a second
soft magnetic film which would be the MR stripe as
envisioned in the Bajourek patent.
In discussing the rejection of claim 1 in the Answer (at
4-5), the examiner shifted his reliance on Hempstead's Figure
2 to Figure 5 and gave a different motivation for modifying
the prior art device in Hempstead:
Hempstead et al[.] (US 4,103,315) discloses a
magnetoresistive read transducer having an exchange layer
55 which contacts a soft active layer 54; see Figure 5.
Exchange layers are conventional in the art for capping
various magnetoresistive layers, including soft magnetic
layers, and achieving desired noise characteristics,
saturation levels of layers and overall improved head
response.
. . . .
. . . [O]ne of ordinary skill in the art would have
been motivated to provide the magnetoresistive read
transducer of the Appellant's Prior Art Figure 1 and
pages 1-2 of the specification with an exchange layer
which contacts a soft adjacent layer in order to have
utilized the exchange layer for capping the soft active
layer and keeping the soft layer in saturation.
Although Appellant did not file a reply brief addressing this
new rationale, we have considered it on the merits and find it
unpersuasive. To the extent the examiner is arguing that
Hempstead suggests using an exchange layer adjacent to a soft
magnetic biasing layer or adjacent to any exposed soft
magnetic layer regardless of its purpose, we disagree for the
reasons already discussed. The examiner's alternative
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