Appeal No. 2000-1371
Application No. 08/867,810
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Smith in view of Hirukawa.1 Claim 7 stands
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Smith and Hirukawa in
view of Watanabe.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
appellant regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the examiner's
answer (Paper No. 15, mailed Aug. 8, 1999) for the examiner's reasoning in support of
the rejections, and to appellant's brief (Paper No. 14, filed May 20, 1999) and reply brief
(Paper No. 16, filed Sep. 29, 1999) for the appellant's arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
appellant's specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
Appellant has elected to group claims into four separate groups. (See brief at
page 8.) In the reply brief at pages 1-2, appellant further details the groupings. Group
1 is directed to a product by process; Group 2 is directed to considerations of
determining the range of NA; Group 3 relates to a method of producing the heads; and
1 We note that the examiner has included claims 3 and 12 in the statement of the rejection, but
these claims were canceled in the after final amendment filed Mar. 1, 1999. Therefore, we will not
address these two claims in our decision.
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