Appeal No. 98-0595
Application 08/461,806
of disk drives in response to a spindle synchronization
command on said bus, whereby the oscillator assembly connected
to said one switch means becomes the master which provides the
index signal to all of said plurality of disk drives.
Opinion
The anticipation rejection of claims 1-4 and 9 cannot be
sustained. A reversal of the rejection on appeal should not
be construed as an affirmative indication that the appellant’s
claims are patentable over prior art. We address only the
positions and rationale as set forth by the examiner and on
which the examiner’s rejection of the claims on appeal is
based.
According to claim 1, a plurality of disk drives are
connected to each other by a bus. Each disk drive includes a
means for activating a switch means in response to a spindle
synchronization command on the bus. An oscillator assembly
activated by the switch means causes the associated disk drive
to become a master relative to the other disk drives. The key
to this appeal is the claimed feature of the presence of a
spindle synchronization command on a bus which connects all of
the disk drives.
The examiner acknowledges that Lewis does not expressly
show a spindle synchronization command on a bus that connects
3
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