Appeal No. 97-2035
Application 08/161,234
upon Kubo to teach this feature. The applicants make no
argument about the manner in which the examiner applied the
teachings from Kubo. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of
claims 5 and 14 as being unpatentable over Kume or Shiroishi,
in view of Abo and Kubo. Because Tsuchiya fails to teach all
of the features of independent claims 1 and 9, upon which
claims 5 and 14 depend on respectively, we do not sustain the
rejection of claims 5 and 14 as being unpatentable over
Tsuchiya in view of Abo and Kubo.
The rejection of claims 7 and 8 over
Kume, Shiroishi, Tsuchiya, in light of Abo and Coughlin
Dependent claim 7 recites that the load-bearing surface
is tapered with its narrow end facing into the relative motion
of the magnetic recording disk for the deflection of magnetic
disk surface debris. Claim 8 depends on claim 7 and recites
that the tapered surface has a uniform taper. The examiner
relied on Coughlin to teach those features of claims 7 and 8.
Coughlin shows in Figures 1 and 2 a head assembly with a
contoured load-bearing surface 20 with a pair of angled
pressure relief slots 26 and 28 formed in the surface 20. It
is the section formed between slots 26 and 28 that the
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