Appeal No. 96-1841
Application 08/101,324
rejection and the patent to Krounbi et al., U.S. Patent
5,005,096, incorporated by reference into appellant's
specification, to be representative of the level of ordinary
skill in the art. See In re Oelrich, 579 F.2d 86, 91,
198 USPQ 210, 214 (CCPA 1978) ("the PTO usually must
evaluate both the scope and content of the prior art and the
level of ordinary skill solely on the cold words of the
literature"); In re GPAC Inc., 57 F.3d 1573, 1579,
35 USPQ2d 1116, 1121 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (the Board did not err
in adopting the approach that the level of skill in the art
was best determined by the references of record). In
addition, those of ordinary skill in the art must be
presumed to know something about the art apart from what the
references expressly disclose. In re Jacoby, 309 F.2d 513,
516, 135 USPQ 317, 319 (CCPA 1962).
We agree with the examiner's conclusion that "[i]t
would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the
art at the time the invention was made to bias the MR head
of Smith with slanted equipotential strips as suggested by
Kuijk ['748]" (EA4). It is considered well known to those
of ordinary skill in the MR sensor art that it is necessary
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