DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1-2, 4-11, and 13-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2020/105492 (pg. numbers refer to English machine translation and Fig. numbers refer to Japanese WIPO document included with this action) in view of Yamaga et al. (US 2020/0402531).
WO’492 discloses magnetic particles for use in magnetic recording applications (see third embodiment on p. 4 of translation and abstract). The reference teaches the particles are formed from ε-iron oxide having the following x-ray diffraction profile:
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Based on the maximum peaks in the 2θ ranges shown in annotated Fig 1C, INT1/INT2 can be estimated to be about 0.7/0.4= 1.75. This falls within the claimed Int1/Int2 ranges of claims 1-2. It is noted that the horizontal measurement lines in Figure 1C represent arbitrary units. For purposes of calculating relative intensity INT1/INT2, each horizontal line is considered to be 0.5 AU.
The reference is silent with regard to the recording medium structure including a nonmagnetic support with the ferromagnetic powder thereon.
Yamaga et al. teaches that a conventional magnetic recording medium includes a nonmagnetic tape substrate and a magnetic recording layer thereon containing ε-Fe2O3 powder (see Fig 1, abstract and para. [0046]-[0048]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to form the magnetic powder taught by WO’492 on a nonmagnetic tape substrate in order to form a functional magnetic recording medium.
With regard to claims 4-6, WO’492 discloses that the iron oxide can have the formula
ε-MxFe2-xO3 wherein M is a metal having a valence of 3 (see claim 9 on last p. of translation). Choice of any metal having a valence of +3, including Co, Ga, Al and Ti as claimed, would have been obvious in view of the apparent suitability of all +3 metals.
With regard to claims 7-9, Yamaga et al. teaches that a conventional magnetic recording tape structure includes a nonmagnetic layer between the substrate and the magnetic recording layer and a backlayer on the opposite side of the substrate (see para [0046] and Fig 1). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the magnetic particles taught by WO’492 in a conventional tape structure having a backlayer/base layer/nonmagnetic layer/magnetic layer structure in order to form a functional recording tape.
Claims 10-11 and 13-17 are directed to a tape cartridge comprising the above-described tape. It is noted that the recitation of the “cartridge” in the preamble is directed to an intended use and does not impart any additional structure to the claimed tape medium. In any case, Yamaga et al. teaches that the conventional recording tape taught therein is suitable for use in a tape cartridge (See [0028]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the ε-Fe2O3 magnetic powder taught by WO’492 to form a magnetic recording tape for use in a cartridge structure.
Claim 18 is directed to a recording and reproducing device including the magnetic recording medium of claim 1. It is noted that the recitation of the “magnetic recording and reproducing device” in the preamble is directed to an intended use and does not impart any additional structure to the claimed tape medium. In any case, Yamaga et al. teaches that it was known in the art to use an ε-Fe2O3 magnetic tape medium in a recording reproducing device. Thus, the tape suggested by the combination of WO’492 and Yamaga et al. would have been obvious to use in a magnetic read/write apparatus.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3 and 12 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The closest prior art to WO’492 fails to teach or suggest a magnetic recording medium having an INT1/INT2 value of 3.0-5.5 wherein INT1 is the max value of diffraction intensity in a range where the diffraction angle 2θᵪ is 29.0-31.0° and INT2 is the max value of diffraction intensity in a range where the diffraction angle 2θᵪ is 36.3-37.5°. Instead, WO’492 discloses only am INT1/INT2 value of approximately 1.75 at these diffraction angles. The prior art fails to suggest a motivation to optimize the intensities of the ε-Fe2O3 magnetic recording layer.
Conclusion
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/Holly Rickman/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1785