Appeal No. 1998-0601 Application 08/225,322 This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the final rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-6, 11, 12, and 15. Claims 3, 7-10, 13, 14, and 16-19 stand withdrawn by the Examiner as being directed to a nonelected species. We affirm-in-part. BACKGROUND The disclosed invention is directed to a driving method and apparatus for an optical read/write drive. Claim 1 is reproduced below. 1. In an optical read/write device of the type having a light source element in an optical pickup for reading and writing data from and to an optical disk, a driving method for said light source element comprising the steps of: determining whether an abnormal tracking error occurs based on a tracking error signal generated in accordance with the movement of the optical pickup; and supplying the light source element with a drive signal having a level suitable for a data read operation, independent of the driving mode of the optical pickup, thereby operating the optical pickup at a power level suitable for reading data, when an abnormal tracking error occurs. The Examiner relies on the admitted prior art (APA) at pages 1-3 of the specification and figure 1, and on the following prior art: - 2 -Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007