Appeal No. 2002-2015 Page 12
Application No. 09/232,138
ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to
place the head and spindle control circuitry within
each of the HDA's as doing this would permit the
control circuitry to be hermetically isolated from
outside environmental hazards such as dust while also
permitting easy replacement of disk drives that have
damaged control circuitry instead of replacing the
entire main printed circuit board.
The examiner (answer, pages 5 and 6) adds that:
[T]he fact remains that both Hatchett et al and Bajorek
et al use a single main PCB shared with multiple
head/disk assemblies wherein each head/disk assembly
has its own respective sub PCB. Thus, one of ordinary
skill in the art would have found it obvious to provide
each of the HDA's of Hatchett et al with the head and
spindle control circuitry taught by Bajorek et al.
Therefore, the combination of Hatchett et al with
Bajorek et al is still seen as proper.
Appellant asserts (brief, page 19) that “the office action
contains no findings as to what is the ordinary level of skill in
the art, and the record lacks substantial evidence that could
support such findings if they had been made.” Appellant argues
(brief, page 20) that the conclusionary statement by the examiner
“does not tell the reviewing body whether the ordinary level of
skill of the alleged routineer in the art is that of a B.S.E.E.
or of a Ph.D. in Chemistry.”
We are not persuaded by appellant's position that the level
of ordinary skill in the art has not been established. From our
review of Hatchett and Bajorek, we find that the references are
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