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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 3/2/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Examiner acknowledges amended Claims 1, 2, and 4 and canceled Claims 2 and 5 in the response filed on 3/2/2026.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to Claims 1, 2, and 4 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 2, and 4 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In Claim 1: Line 6, please amend “a magnetic disk” to “the magnetic disk” and “a hard disk device” to “the hard disk device”. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claims 1 and 2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 07226044 (“Hino et al.”) in view of US Pub. No. 20200035268 (“Osakabe”).
With regards to Claim 1, Hino et al. teaches a hard disk device having a magnetic disk, wherein the magnetic disk is prepared using a magnetic disk substrate having a pair of front and back principal surfaces comprising fixed portions that are in contact with fixing jigs when the magnetic disk substrate configured as a magnetic disk is incorporated in a hard disk device on the respective front and back principal surfaces (clamping area clamped on a disk table). Hino et al. further teaches that an average surface roughness of the fixed portions on the respective front and back principal surfaces (clamping area 3) is 0.5 μm or less. Example 1 discloses an average surface roughness Ra in the clamping region (3) is 0.05 μm (Fig. 1, [0010]-[0012], [0026], [0037], and [0040]).
Hino et al. does not explicitly disclose the surface roughnesses in terms of a room mean square deviation Rq is 0.01 to 0.44 μm. Hino et al. is silent of the specific impact test parameters used to determine the claimed displacement properties, however, it is noted that USPTO does not have a laboratory to test out and experiment on Hino et al.’s invention. Hino et al. does not teach its hard disk device having a ramp, wherein a gap between the magnetic disk and the ramp is less than 171 μm.
However, when the surface roughness distribution is a normal distribution, the values of the average surface roughness Ra and the root mean square deviation Rq of the surface roughness are Rq = (π/2)1/2⋅Ra = 1.25⋅Ra. Therefore, when the average surface roughness Ra of Hino et al. is converted into Rq, the root mean square deviation Rq of Example 1 is 0.06 μm, and thus would overlap within the claimed range of 0.01-0.44 μm. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have a room mean square deviation Rq as claimed in order to obtain a magnetic disk substrate that is less susceptible to deformation over time or during chucking [0009].
Hino et al. further teaches that its magnetic disk substrate reduce the deformation during chucking by making the front and the back surface substantially parallel to each other and making the surface substantially smooth in the clamping region. If the amount of deformation at the time of chucking becomes large, the amount of runout becomes too large, or the magnetic head does not float stably [0011]. Therefore, in view of the instant teachings and Hino et al. teaching the claimed root mean square deviation Rq of surface roughnesses of the fixed portions on the front and back principal surfaces, the Examiner deems that it would have been obvious for Hino et al. to optimize its magnetic disk substrate to have the claimed maximum value H of the amount of displacement in the plate thickness direction of the outer circumferential end portion of the magnetic disk substrate be 165 μm or less, and the attenuation rate E of the amount of displacement is 17.7 μm/msec or more in order to obtain a stable and impact resistant magnetic disk substrate during use.
Osakabe teaches a hard disk device comprising a ramp, wherein a gap between ramps that a magnetic disk enters has a length “the thickness of the magnetic disk+0.4 mm or less” ([0009], [0108], and [0113]). Therefore, a gap between the magnetic disk and a ramp is 0.2 mm or less, which overlaps the claimed range of less than 171 μm. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to optimize a gap distance between Hino et al.’s ramp and magnetic disk to be 0.2 mm or less in order to suppress vibration during use [0113].
With regards to Claim 2, when the surface roughness distribution is a normal distribution, the root mean square deviation of Example 1 is 0.06 μm in Hino et al., as set forth above. In order to have substantially uniform properties in the front and back surfaces of the magnetic disk substrate, the Rq of the front and back principal surfaces would be substantially the same (i.e. about 0.06 μm in Example 1). Therefore, the absolute value of the difference ΔRq of Rq of the fixed portions of the front and back principal surfaces would substantially overlap with the claimed range of 0.01 to 0.11 μm. Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have Hino et al. optimize an absolute value of a difference ΔRq of Rq of the fixed portions of the front and back principal surfaces be from 0.01 to 0.11 μm in order to have a substantially uniform property/surface roughness in the clamping region/area of the magnetic disk substrate.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 07226044 (“Hino et al.”) in view of US Pub. No. 20200035268 (“Osakabe”) as applied to Claim 1 above, and further in view of WO 2022004826 (“Kitawaki et al.”). The Examiner notes that US Pub. No. 20230238027 is the English language equivalent to WO ‘826. See provided Derwent Abstract translation illustrating the equivalence of these two references.
Hino et al. teaches a plate thickness of its disc-shaped magnetic disk substrate is 0.3-2.0 mm ([0015] and Claim 4).
Hino et al. does not teach the claimed outer diameter and inner diameter values of the disc-shaped magnetic disk substrate.
However, Kitawaki et al. teaches a magnetic disk substrate, which is a disc-shaped magnetic disk substrate having an outer diameter of 97 mm, an inner diameter of 25 mm, and a plate thickness of 0.5 mm ([0105] and [0108]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have Hino et al.’s disc-shaped magnetic disk conform to the size as claimed in view of design choice, increasing magnetic density/capacity, etc.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant's disclosure.
US Pub. No. 20040038082 (“Tsumori”) discloses a magnetic disk substrate having a square mean roughness (Rms) of 1 to 1000 nm, wherein the square mean roughness (Rms) of the surface is the square root of the mean of the squares of deviation from the measurement average line to the measurement lines and can be measured by AFM (atomic force microscopy) [0035].
Yoon et al. “Operational Shock Analysis for 2.5-in Multi-Disk HDD Considering Ramp-Disk Gap Irregularity.” IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Vol. 53, No. 3, 2017, pp. 1-4 (“Yoon et al.”). Yoon et al. teaches that the differences in the gap between the ramp and each disk should be decreased in order to improve the anti-shock performance of an HDD. As shown in Table 2, a gap between the magnetic disk and ramp less is than 60 μm (Abstract, Fig. 7, Table II, B. Ramp-Disk contact Effect With a Multi-Disk HDD section on Pages 3-4, and IV. Conclusion on Page 4).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LISA CHAU whose telephone number is (571)270-5496. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 11 AM-730 PM.
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/LC/
Lisa Chau
Art Unit 1785
/Holly Rickman/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1785