Appeal No. 2003-1208
Application 09/590,805
The examiner has not explained how the admitted prior art
remedies the above-discussed deficiency in Kalnitsky and Tursky.
We therefore reverse the rejection of claim 3 over Kalnitsky
in view of the admitted prior art and Tursky.
Rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-7 and 22-25 over Murdock
in view of the appellants’ admitted prior art
Claim 1
Murdock discloses a method and an apparatus for preventing
damage to a magnetoresistive sensor element (34) of a
magnetoresistive head assembly (28) caused by electrostatic
discharge (col. 1, lines 12-15). The head is electrically
connected to detection circuitry (16) via electrical conductors
(18a and 18b) (col. 3, lines 60-64). A diode assembly (30)
electrically connects the conductors (col. 5, lines 44-45). When
the electrical potential or voltage across the magnetoresistive
sensor element and between the conductors exceeds a selected
voltage protection threshold in either direction, the diode
assembly shorts current between the conductors away from the
magnetoresistive sensor element to electrically short
electrostatic discharge current pulses away from the
magnetoresistive sensor element (col. 6, lines 53-60). Murdock
teaches that soft diodes which may conduct at less than the
16
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