Appeal No. 1998-1658
Application 08/343,876
and obliquely vapor deposited tape have been used in combination
(specification, p. 2, lines 13-18).
The other obviousness question is whether it would have been
obvious to run the head in Shimizu '645, figure 8, in a direction
relative to the tape in Shimizu '178 so that the high saturation
magnetic flux density material 13a is on the leading gap edge,
because no direction is specified in Shimizu '645. The Examiner
states that the head of Shimizu '645 is considered to run in a
normal direction with respect to the magnetic recording medium
with the high saturation magnetic flux density material forming a
leading gap edge (EA7), but provides no reasoning for this
finding. Nevertheless, there are only two ways the head could be
mounted for recording and reproducing, with the high saturation
magnetic flux density material on the leading gap edge or on the
trailing gap edge, and we see no reason why it would not have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to mount the
head in either orientation. Since claims 1 and 8 do not
specifically recite the orientation of the principal axis of the
magnetic anisotropy of the recording media relative to the normal
running direction of the head, there can be no argument that the
claimed subject matter achieves an unexpected result by the
relationship between the principal axis of the magnetic
anisotropy and the head as shown in Appellants' figure 1A.
- 13 -
Page: Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007