Appeal No. 2003-0065
Application 09/491,284
pad and the overall shape includes a V-shaped portion and
another portion. Appellants' argument that Brezoczky "fails to
teach or suggest that the single crystal material should be
spaced from the leading or trailing edge of the slider body"
(Br12) is confusing because no slider body is claimed and the
only "trailing edge" claimed is the trailing edge of the pad in
claim 10.
The examiner's reasoning does not address the actual claim
limitation. The rejection mentions spacing the trailing edge of
the pad from the trailing edge, but does not say the trailing
edge of what--perhaps the examiner means the trailing edge of the
pad is spaced from the trailing edge of the slider as argued by
appellants. The claim is directed to the wide part of the
V-shaped portion of the pad being spaced from the trailing edge
of the pad. In our opinion, it would have been apparent to one
of ordinary skill in the art that only the front portion of the
V-shaped slider and crystal sheet (pad) in Brezoczky needs to
have a V-shape to prevent the slider from being moved off-track
by the air film (col. 4, lines 65-68) and, therefore, it would
have been obvious to provide an area of the pad in back of the
V-shaped portion so that the wide part of the V-shaped portion of
the pad is spaced from the trailing edge of the pad. For
example, the square pads 64 in Fig. 6 of Brezoczky can be thought
of as two V-shaped portions back-to-back, indicating that there
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