Ex parte PARK - Page 15




          Appeal No. 1998-0601                                                        
          Application 08/225,322                                                      

               It is true that inherency requires that something                      
          necessarily be so.  It would have been safer for the Examiner               
          to rely on obviousness reasoning rather than inherency.                     
          Nevertheless, the limitation of "a selector for selecting the               
          reading drive signal if the error signal is active and                      
          otherwise selecting between the reading drive signal and the                
          writing drive signal based on the mode signal" is not in                    
          means-plus-function format so as to require specific structure              
          and we find that the function is taught by the combination of               
          the APA and Miura.  When the tracking error is inactive, Miura              
          selects between the read and write levels based on the mode                 
          signal as further expressly taught in the APA.  When the                    
          tracking error is active, Miura teaches selecting a decreased               
          power level from a range including the read level using the                 
          control signal from 32.  Claim 11 does not require more.  Even              
          if the control signal in Miura continuously decreased the                   
          current instead of using a bi-level switch (no matter how                   
          unlikely that possibility may be), eventually it would select               
          a decreased power level, which is all that is required.                     
               For the reasons stated above, the rejection of claims 11               
          and 12 is sustained.                                                        

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