Appeal No. 1998-0204
Application 08/501,542
simultaneously, at the exact same time. Appellants state:
Applicants’ claims call for a control means which
can begin to provide “a movement current ... at a
time when” also beginning “to provide a field
generating current.” As set forth by Applicants’
claims, the present invention is not simply calling
for the use of a bucking coil to eliminate or reduce
the magnetic force in a capture region, so that less
power can be used to unlatch an actuator. Instead,
Applicants’ claims are establishing a limitation
that calls for the simultaneous initiation of the
actuator movement current and the bucking coil field
generating current.
Sampietro, et al. merely suggests that a
magnetic latching force may be counteracted during
the unlatching of an actuator by supplying a short
duration current pulse to a bucking coil.... No
showing is made of any temporal relationship between
the initiation of the bucking coil current pulse and
the initiation of the actuator movement current.
(emphasis added.) (Brief-pages 15 and 16.)
The Examiner responds that the two currents of
Sampietro must operate simultaneously, otherwise the bucking
coil would be of no assistance to the actuator arm to break
free of the magnetic latch (answer-pages 4 and 5).
Furthermore, the Examiner states:
As courteously pointed out by the
Appellants, the device of Sampietro et al (US
5,361,182) requires that the filed [sic, field]
generating current [bucking coil] and the movement
current [actuator arm] be operated simultaneously,
(as long as the field and movement generating
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