Appeal No. 1998-0261
Application No. 08/438,319
OPINION
Section 102 rejection
“Anticipation is established only when a single prior art reference discloses, expressly or under
principles of inherency, each and every element of a claimed invention.” RCA Corp. v. Applied Digital
Data Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
Claims 1 and 5-8 have been rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102 as being anticipated by Schwarz.
The examiner contends that the claims read on the Schwarz embodiment of Figure 7. (See Answer,
pages 2 and 3.) Appellants’ main concern with the rejection, as set forth in the Brief and Reply Brief,
appears to be that the way appellants’ disclosed read and write heads are organized into “modules” is
not disclosed by Schwarz.
As detailed on page 3 of the Answer, the examiner considers the claims to be anticipated
because, inter alia: “One module of head assembly 80 as shown in figure 7 is read heads 82 and write
heads 86. The other module in head assembly 80 is read heads 88 and write heads 84.”
The word “module” is a broad and non-specific term, generally defined with respect to
electronic apparatus as “a usu. packaged functional assembly of electronic components for use with
other such assemblies.” Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, 1990. Appellants use the term
“module” in the sense of “a grouping of elements.” (See Brief, page 5.)
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