Appeal No. 1998-0446
Application 08/572,195
directed by said arms and head drive means past the pivot of the
head drive means as recited in claim 1 [id., pages 6-7]. We
agree with the position argued by appellant.
The magnetic disk drives of Edwards, Yokoyama and Ebihara
have dust filters located where the air flows inside the
respective disk drives. Claim 1 recites a location for the
filter which would not be within the air flow of the Edwards disk
drive. We agree with appellant that there would be no motivation
to modify the location of the filter in Edwards based on Yokoyama
or Ebihara because there would be no expectation of collecting
any dust in the claimed location. The examiner’s position
essentially requires that the disk drive of Edwards be redesigned
to be something different. Edwards specifically discloses,
however, that the “subassemblies of the HDA [head disk assembly]
are maintained in a precise relationship in the compact housing
by precisely machined mounting positions on base 10" [column 6,
lines 57-60]. Thus, Edwards teaches away from moving any of the
HDA components with respect to the housing. Any attempt to
modify the disk drive of Edwards to incorporate teachings of
Yokoyama or Ebihara would have to be based upon an improper
attempt to reconstruct appellant’s invention in hindsight.
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