Ex parte MATSUI et al. - Page 5




          Appeal No. 1998-0696                                       Page 5           
          Application No. 08/444,664                                                  


               We fail to follow the examiner’s reasoning.  Hanson is                 
          concerned with increasing head sensitivity by reversing bias                
          current direction dependent on the position of a given burst                
          pattern with respect to the center of the servo pattern and                 
          does not appear to be concerned at all with the problem of the              
          instant claimed invention which is to limit the range of motion             
          of the read element to be equidistant from the track center                 
          when the magnetoresistive head is reading, writing or                       
          formatting.  Although appellants make this argument, as well as             
          point to specific claim limitations which are believed not                  
          suggested by the applied references [brief, pages 8-10], the                
          examiner’s response is merely to state [answer-page 7] that                 
          “[i]f two places are ‘mirrored’ about a central location, they              
          are equally distant from each other” and that the examiner                  
          relies on APA for the claimed range of motion limitations.  The             
          examiner’s response is not persuasive to us that the skilled                
          artisan would have been led, from Hanson’s teaching of                      
          reversing current flow in a magnetoresistive head to correct                
          for the head’s asymmetric response, to modify APA to provide                
          for a range of motion of the read element to be equidistant                 
          from the center of the track during the three functions of                  







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