Appeal No. 95-2413
Application 07/936,865
however, without the keepers or pole pieces, the heart shape
of the erosion profile would be disturbed and changed" (EA6).
Appellants argue that "[n]one of the prior art relied
upon by the Examiner shows, suggests or makes obvious the use
of keepers to hold a plurality of individual magnets in a
rotating magnet array" (Br10). Appellants further argue that
Suzuki "does not show the use of a plurality of magnets in an
array positioned between keepers" (RBr13).
We agree that the applied prior art of Suzuki, Sato '374,
and Sato '375 does not show keepers, as claimed. The
examiner's conclusion that there must be keepers meeting the
claim limitations that are not shown for reasons of simplicity
is without any factual basis in the references. Therefore,
the rejection of claims 31, 32, 46, 48-57, and 61 is reversed.
Group 4 - claims 39-41
The Group 4 claims are directed to magnet arrangements to
achieve specific non-uniform erosion patterns, i.e., a
"trigonometric function" (claim 39), a "step function"
(claim 40), and a "non-constant linear function" (claim 41).
The examiner states that "[w]ith respect to the
non-uniform erosion, figure 1 of the Japanese patent '375 and
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