Appeal No. 2000-1952
Application No. 09/006,920
The examiner maintains that Gururangan or Cox teaches all of the limitations
except the use of a heat pipe which incorporates evaporation and condensation. The
examiner relies upon the teachings of Lloyd which clearly teaches the use of a heat
pipe in servomotors for cooling of the motor. Alternatively, the examiner relies upon the
teachings of Heintz to teach the use of a heat pipe in a motor system. The examiner
maintains that the heat tube of Lloyd may be used with or without a finned heat
remover. (See Lloyd at column 4, lines 17-21 and answer at page 6.) We agree with
the examiner that the use of fins is an alternative embodiment and not deemed to be
critical to the operation of the heat pipe.
The examiner maintains that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill
in the art to incorporate a heat pipe of Lloyd into the hollow motor shaft of Gururangan
for the purpose of cooling the motor. (See answer at page 5.) While we agree with the
examiner that cooling of the motor is always desirable, and Lloyd appears to be
directed to servomotors as may be used in a drive system, we are left with a question of
why would the skilled artisan be motivated to implement such a system of a spindle
motor assembly of a magnetic storage system with a risk of contamination. Clearly,
Gururangan and Cox teach the routing of electrical connections through the hollow
portion of central shaft of the motor. Cox even states that the problem of space for
routing the wires is due to the tight space constraints within the housing of the drive.
(Cox at column 2, lines 17-23 and column 3, line 54-column 4, line 9.)
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