Appeal No. 2002-1914
Application 09/247,889
rejection, and to appellant’s brief (Paper No. 19, filed July 23,
2001) and reply brief (Paper No. 22, filed February 15, 2002) for
the 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 APA, and to the respective
positions articulated by appellant and the examiner. As a
consequence of our review, we have made the determination which
follows.
In rejecting claims 1 through 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) on
the basis of the collective teachings of the APA, Ellenberger and
Sawada, it is the examiner’s position (answer, page 3) that the
APA discloses appellant’s claimed method except for 1) operating
on an individual slider and 2) the etching technique of using a
variable thickness photo resist mask to create surfaces at an
acute angle to the masked surface. To address the first of these
differences the examiner turns to Ellenberger, urging that
Ellenberger teaches “the equivalency of shaping individual
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