Appeal No. 1998-1658
Application 08/343,876
heads can reproduce signals when traversing in a reverse
direction, e.g., reversing when playing a video tape, but this is
not the "normal direction" for recording and/or reproducing.
Claim 1 recites "wherein a substantial direction of a principle
[sic] axis of said magnetic anisotropy rises by 10-80° from said
recording surface of said recording medium," but does not state
the orientation of the axis with respect to the running
direction. Claim 8 is similar. Limitations are not to be read
into the claims. See In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321-22,
13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (explaining the policies
for the broadest reasonable interpretation and not reading
limitations into the claims).
Issue (1): Claims 1, 4-6, 8, and 11-13
Shimizu '178 and Kobayashi
Shimizu '178 discloses a magnetic recording medium in which
an undercoat layer is formed by oblique-incidence vacuum
evaporation of cobalt or a cobalt alloy, which is presumed to
produce a magnetic layer having substantially uniaxial oblique
magnetic anisotropy with respect to a recording surface of the
medium. Since the cobalt or alloy thereof is evaporated at an
incident angle with respect to the support of 10° to 90° (col. 2,
lines 50-57), the principal axis of magnetic anisotropy is
considered to be 10° to 80° from the surface, as recited in
claims 1 and 8. Shimizu '178 has a second layer formed by a wet
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