Appeal No. 2000-1241
Application No. 08/424,156
respect to well-known tradeoffs, the examiner has provided neither support nor line of
reasoning which would have motivated skilled artisans to modify the teaching in the
combination of Kondo and Kubota to use recording heads having gaps with different
azimuth angles of substantially ± 20°. Therefore, the examiner has not established a
prima facie case of obviousness in rejecting independent claim 17 and dependent
claims 18 and 19.
As discussed above, the combination of Kondo and Kubota does teach or fairly
suggest the invention recited in independent claim 1, but the examiner's reliance upon
Official Notice does not provide any teaching or line of reasoning to support the
examiner’s conclusion that the invention recited in claims 4 and 6 would have been
obvious. Therefore, we cannot sustain the rejection of dependent claims 4 and 6.
CONCLUSION
To summarize, the decision of the examiner to reject claims 1, 2, 4, 6-8, 10-14,
and 17-19 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph is reversed; the decision of the
examiner to reject claims 1, 2, 4, 6-8, 10-14, and 17-19 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph is reversed; the decision of the examiner to reject claims 1, 2, 8, and 10-14
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is affirmed; and the decision of the examiner to reject claims 4,
6, 7, and 17-19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.
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