Appeal No. 97-3642
Application 08/364,519
next consecutively vacant tracks, or (2) the desirability of
knowing the current number of consecutively vacant tracks as
the recording apparatus is operating.
The examiner has ignored the significance of the word
“remain” in the phrase “and only four consecutively vacant
tracks remain.” We understand the above-quoted text of
Hashiomoto to
mean that if a signal requires five or six tracks to record
and it is not until the end that one finds out there are not
enough vacant tracks (since there are only four consecutive
tracks remaining), then an opportunity to record a signal
requiring only four or less tracks would have been wasted.
The word “consecutively” is used in the second of the
above-quoted paragraphs of Hashimoto before the words “vacant
tracks” not because of any requirement that consecutive tracks
must be used to record a signal requiring multiple tracks, but
to distinguish the scenario from the other set of problems,
mentioned in the first of the above-quoted paragraphs, which
is associated with vacant tracks that are interspersed on the
medium, i.e., delay in shifting the recording head.
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