Appeal No. 1998-0596
Application 08/259,370
22). Note also that from page 21, line 26, to page 22, line 1, the appellants’ specification
states: “The transducers 74 are deposited onto the substrate 90 in a row and column
configuration as is shown in Fig. 4A.” Furthermore, as is pointed out by the examiner
(answer at page 11, lines 2-3), even Ainslie itself (column 4, lines 44-48) refers to its slider
and head assembly as a thin film slider.
The appellants further argue that there is no motivation for one with ordinary skill in
the art “to modify the thin film suspension of Kant with the slider taught by Ainslie” (Br. at
14). The argument is misplaced. The combination of a suspension and a slider was well
known as is demonstrated by either Ainslie or Kant, and as is described in the
Background portion of the appellants’ specification. One with ordinary skill in the art would
have known to put together an alternative slider with the same suspension, or an alternative
suspension with the same slider. The examiner is correct that references may be properly
combined for reasons other than those with which the appellants are concerned. See, In
re Dillon, 919 F.2d 688, 693, 16 USPQ2d 1897, 1901 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (in banc), cert.
denied, 500 U.S. 904, 111 S. Ct. 1682 (1991).
Claim 46 requires that the integrated slider and transducer have an air bearing
surface, which air bearing surface consists entirely of only second edge surfaces of the thin
film layers of the integrated slider and transducer.
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