Appeal No. 1998-2072
Application No. 08/777,054
OPINION
The section 103 rejection of independent claim 26 as being unpatentable over
McLaughlin is set forth on pages 3 and 4 of the Answer. In view of the commentary on
pages 3 through 5 of the Answer, it is unclear what the examiner considers the difference
to be between the other independent claim -- method claim 18 -- and the disclosure of
McLaughlin.
In any event, the examiner finds that the reference discloses a feature relevant to
each of the independent claims on appeal. “[T]he reference teaches the feature of reading
data in opposite direction from which it was stored in a storage media [see col. 1 (lines
26-35), col. 3 (lines 61-62), col. 9 (lines 9-12)].”
However, we do not see where that particular teaching is found in the cited sections
of McLaughlin. The reference does disclose transporting magnetic tape in a reverse
direction and reading the data in that reverse direction. However, as appellants point out
on page 4 of the Brief, McLaughlin at column 4, lines 27-35 clearly discloses that data are
written on the tape in the direction in which the data are to be read. Blocks of data which
are read in the reverse direction are, at the time of writing, written in that reverse direction.
We thus agree with appellants that the examiner erred in determining the difference
between the claims and what McLaughlin discloses. We note that the examiner has not
(nor have appellants) commented on a passage which appears at column 3, lines 19-23 of
-3-
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