Appeal No. 2002-1502
Application No. 09/388,885
At the outset, we must point out that the section of
Dahlberg referenced by the examiner, column 7, lines 45-51, does
not expressly disclose a thickness of 60-80 D but, rather, a
thickness within a range of 50-10,000 D (5-1,000 nm). Moreover,
as explained by appellant, Dahlberg is not directed to an MTJ
magnetoresistive sensor of the admitted prior art and the present
invention, but to a saturation excited spin valve magnetoresis-
tive (SESVMR) sensor. According to appellant, Dahlberg does not
mention MTJ sensors, and, significantly, current flows
perpendicular to the layers forming an MTJ sensor whereas the
sense current flows in the plane of the layers in Dahlberg’s
SESVMR sensor. Appellant properly maintains that Dahlberg,
considered as a whole, teaches that soft ferromagnetic material
should have a thickness greater than approximately 100 D, and
the reference exemplifies a Ni-Fe-Mo layer of 1200 D. According
to appellant, “since the sense current in an MTJ sensor flows
perpendicularly through the sensor layers, one of ordinary skill
in the art would avoid thick, high-resistivity material for the
soft (free) layer because it is well known in the art [that] the
increased scattering in such a layer reduces the electron mean
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