Appeal No. 97-3642
Application 08/364,519
on the recording medium. We adopt the same construction for
the term. Furthermore, according to the claim, such number of
consecutively vacant tracks does not represent the total
number of unrecorded or vacant blocks remaining on the medium.
Hashimoto is the only reference the examiner relied on
for a suggestion that the number of pictures continuously
recordable should be detected and then displayed. Even
according to the examiner, however, Hashimoto does not
expressly teach counting the number of consecutively vacant
tracks on a given recording medium and displaying that number
when the continuous recording mode is selected. The examiner
first (answer at page 5) points to one section of Hashimoto
(column 1, lines 31-45) and explains that according to
Hashimoto, if the next vacant recording tracks are not
contiguous, there can be a significant delay in locating a
blank track. We agree with that assessment of Hashimoto. The
examiner then points (answer at page 5) to another portion of
Hashimoto which supposedly suggests keeping track of the
number of next consecutive vacant tracks. We disagree with
that part of the examiner’s analysis.
In column 1, lines 31-51 of Hashimoto, the following is
4
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