Appeal No. 1998-1658
Application 08/343,876
5500 gauss at most (Okuda, col. 1, lines 31-32). The Examiner's
statement that Shimizu '645 has "high saturation magnetic flux
density material 17a only on one side of gap 12" (FR6; EA7),
fails to recognize that thin film 17a has a preferred lower
saturation flux density than thin film 13a and fails to address
how the second ferromagnetic thin film 17a affects the rejection.
Appellants point to the lower saturation magnetic flux density
material, but do not point out how the claims patentably define
thereover. We have studied claims 1 and 8 and conclude that
because the claims are "open-ended" they do not preclude the
presence of the additional layer of a low saturation magnetic
flux density material 17a. Thus, we find that Shimizu '645 meets
the head limitations of claims 1 and 8. Further, it would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that the
saturation magnetic flux density of second thin film 17a could be
made equal to that of the first thin film 13a, as shown by
figure 3, if the advantages of the lower saturation flux density
of thin film 17a was not desired. Still further, if thin
film 17a had a saturation magnetic flux density of 6000 gauss and
the ferrite had a saturation magnetic flux density of slightly
less than 5000 gauss (noting that Okuda discloses that 5500 gauss
is a maximum value for ferrite), the thin film 17a would have a
saturation flux density of more than 1.2 times the saturation
magnetic flux density of the other gap edge, as claimed.
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