Appeal No. 97-3642
Application 08/364,519
stated:
In a conventional arrangement, the head is
automatically shifted to the next recording track
upon completion of the recording on one track. If
the next track is found already recorded on, the
head is further shifted to another track until a
vacant track is found. In such a conventional
system, the head moves from one recording track to
another while detecting the presence or absence of a
recording signal. Accordingly, the length of time
required for accessing the vacant track increases
with the number of tracks that must be skipped.
Where it is only the last recording track that is
found unrecorded and vacant, or where the recording
medium has no vacant track, much time is wasted in a
useless search and shift operation.
Another shortcoming of the conventional
arrangement becomes evident when recording a signal
requiring five or six tracks, for example, and only
four consecutively vacant tracks remain. Recording
would then have to be stopped unfinished and a
valuable recording opportunity would be missed.
The examiner is correct in noting (answer at page 5) that
per the first paragraph of the above-reproduced text,
Hashimoto teaches that if the [vacant] recording tracks are
not contiguous, there can be a significant delay in locating a
blank track, if one even exists, and that such delay is
dependent upon the number of tracks that must be skipped. We
disagree with the examiner’s position, however, that the
second of the above-quoted paragraph reasonably would have
suggested (1) the undesirableness of not knowing the number of
5
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