Appeal No. 1998-2472
Application No. 08/614,324
ranging, for example, from determining faults and malfunctions
in electronic or electromechanical systems" (see Sheppard,
column 6, lines 60-64). Thus, Sheppard's tester would clearly
apply to defect detection in a disk drive storage device such
as Meyer's. Further, Sheppard states (column 8, lines 10-21)
that for analyzing test data "[e]xamples of commonly used
diagnostic approaches include ... neural networks," among
others. Therefore, Sheppard would have suggested to the
skilled artisan that neural networks are commonly used for
analyzing test data. Accordingly, appellant's argument
notwithstanding, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art to employ such a commonly used neural network
in Meyer's system to analyze the test data "to determine
whether a predefined defect exists," as recited in claim 4.
Appellant also contends (Brief, pages 16-17) that only
appellant teaches diagnosing the type of defect existing in a
disk drive. However, claim 4 merely requires determining the
existence of a defect, which Meyer clearly does. Therefore,
we will affirm the rejection of claim 4 and the claims grouped
therewith, claims 7, 8, 17, and 20.
Regarding the second group of claims, appellant argues
(Brief, page 17) that the references do not teach or suggest a
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