Appeal No. 96-1209
Application 08/168,805
OPINION
Turning first to the rejection of claims 11 through 15
under 35 U.S.C. § § 102(a) or (e), we will sustain this
rejection.
Appellant does not deny that Comerford discloses a disk
drive having a housing, a storage disk, an actuator arm,
accelerometer device, computational means, evaluation means
and
a control means, as claimed. The only issue, as argued by
appellant, is whether Comerford discloses the claimed “timing
means.” It is appellant’s contention that Comerford does not
disclose such a means for measuring a duration that a fall of
the disk drive is in progress.
Comerford does teach, throughout the disclosure, that a
control is activated when a value of a calculated acceleration
falls within a preset range of accelerations, understandably
leading to appellant’s conclusion that Comerford parks the
disk head at the first hint of a predetermined acceleration,
i.e., 1g, without any consideration of a predetermined period
of time. However, to whatever extent that interpretation
might, at first, appear reasonable, the disclosure, by
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