Appeal No. 1997-1162
Application 08/200,455
Appellant argues that the Examiner's rationale is
hindsight because nothing in the prior art suggests that
precise alignment results from the use of a stepped shaft
(Br21). We do not find any teaching in Fruge or the English
language abstract of Voll that a stepped shaft allows for
precise alignment. It would be best if examiners refrained
from making up reasons to combine that are not supported by
the record or are only found in an applicant's disclosure
because this points to hindsight analysis. In our opinion,
sufficient motivation for one of ordinary skill in the disk
drive art to use a stepped shaft spindle to mount a rotor is
found in the express disclosure in Voll and Fruge that a
stepped shaft spindle is one known structure to mount a rotor.
That is, it would have been within the level of skill of one
of ordinary skill in the art to substitute any known spindle
mounting for the spindle mountings in the primary references.
In addition, we find that one of ordinary skill in the
art would have had sufficient knowledge to recognize the
advantages of a stepped shaft in Fruge and Voll from the
drawings without any express description. Fruge does not
describe any advantages, perhaps because they were so well
- 10 -
Page: Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007