Appeal No. 2003-1573
Application No. 08/854,407
According to appellant, the invention is directed to a method
of making an efficient magnetoresistive (MR) sensor for which the
output voltage signal has been maximized for a given applied sense
current, with an increase in resistivity of the bias layer and the
spacer layer minimizing the shunt of sense current through these
layers (Brief, page 2). A further understanding of the invention
may be seen from representative independent claims 1 and 9, a copy
of which may be found in Appendix A of the Brief.
The examiner has relied upon the following references as
evidence of obviousness:
Cuomo et al. (Cuomo) 4,231,816 Nov. 04, 1980
Koyama et al. (Koyama) 4,364,099 Dec. 14, 1982
Jenson 4,897,288 Jan. 30, 1990
Osano et al. (Osano) 5,429,731 Jul. 04, 1995
Bonyhard et al. (Bonyhard) 5,495,378 Feb. 27, 1996
Matsushita 01152255 Jun. 14, 1989
(published Japanese patent application)2
The claims on appeal stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Bonyhard in view of Jenson, Koyama, Osano,
2The inventors of this application are Akihiro et al.
(Matsushita is the applicant). Since the examiner and appellant
refer to this document as “Matsushita” (Brief, page 5; Answer,
page 3), we will also use this terminology. We note that the
examiner only relies upon a Patent Abstract of this document
(Answer, page 8, last paragraph), but the record now contains a
full English translation of this document (see Paper No. 30 dated
Mar. 16, 2003). Accordingly, we refer to and cite from the full
English translation now of record.
2
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