DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 1, 3, 4, 6-11, 13, 14 & 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Gan et al. (US 10,199,067).
In regard to claim 1, Gan et al. discloses a method of adjusting a heat-assisted magnetic recording and reproduction device (Figures 1 & 2) comprising a heat-assisted magnetic recording head (106) and a heat-assisted magnetic recording medium (102) provided with a lubricant (105) on a recording surface thereof, the method comprising: operating the heat-assisted magnetic recording head on the recording surface (as shown in Figure 2), and measuring a build-up product generation time until the lubricant fills between the recording surface and the heat-assisted magnetic recording head (column 2, lines 52-53: “localized accumulations of fluorocarbon-based lubrication applied to the media surfaces”; column 6, lines 52-54: “The disturbance measurements may be based on signal strength, duration, displacement power, mechanical strain, or any other suitable factor”); and setting a cleaning time interval for cleaning the build-up product based on the build-up product generation time (abstract: “The media cleaning operation involves sweeping the data transducer across the data recording surface from
a first radius to a second radius over a selected time duration”).
In regard to claim 3, Gan et al. discloses that the cleaning time interval is calculated based on a total write time (claim 1: “adaptive cleaning circuit configured to perform a media cleaning operation by advancing the data transducer across the data recording surface from a first radius to a second radius over a selected time duration responsive to the mechanical disturbance event having a magnitude that exceeds a predetermined threshold, the selected time duration selected responsive to a rate at which the data access commands are issued to the data storage device.”; column 3, lines 31-32: “The data access commands include read commands to read data and write commands to write data.”).
In regard to claim 4, Gan et al. discloses that the cleaning time interval is calculated based on an operating time of the heat-assisted magnetic recording and reproduction device (column 3, lines 47-52: “The full cleaning sequence may be carried out if the cleaning system determines that the storage device is in an idle period of operation (e.g., no pending host access commands are pending), or if there is sufficient time available to perform the full cleaning sequence before executing the next pending access command.”).
In regard to claim 6, Gan et al. discloses that the cleaning includes lowering a flying height of the heat-assisted magnetic recording head with respect to the heat-assisted magnetic recording medium (column 7, lines 60-67: “It is contemplated that the sweeping path will be designed to be highly efficient and effective, so that as much of the media surface is covered as possible within a host-tolerable duration such that host data transfer rate performance is not adversely degraded beyond an acceptable limit. A passive fly height condition is contemplated for the sweep, but a different height can be used including a higher than normal or lower than normal altitude for the activated transducer.”).
In regard to claim 7, Gan et al. discloses that the cleaning includes touching down of the heat-assisted magnetic recording head with respect to the heat-assisted magnetic recording medium (column 7, lines 60-67: “It is contemplated that the sweeping path will be designed to be highly efficient and effective, so that as much of the media surface is covered as possible within a host-tolerable duration such that host data transfer rate performance is not adversely degraded beyond an acceptable limit. A passive fly height condition is contemplated for the sweep, but a different height can be used including a higher than normal or lower than normal altitude for the activated transducer.”).
In regard to claim 8, Gan et al. discloses that the cleaning is performed in a dedicated area provided in an innermost or outermost circumferential non-data area of the recording surface (see column 11, lines 24-34).
In regard to claim 9, Gan et al. discloses that the cleaning is performed in a data area (see Figure 10A).
In regard to claim 10, Gan et al. discloses that the cleaning is performed in a non-data area between bands of a shingled magnetic recording mode (see column 10, lines 28-41).
Claims 11, 13, 14 & 16-20 recite similar limitations as claims 1, 3, 4 & 6-10 and are therefore rejected on the same grounds.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 5, 12 and 15 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon (see attached PTO-892 form) is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Guo (US 2009/0128951) discloses a method wherein the evaporation of a lubricant is accelerated by increasing the temperature of the environment, such as by placing the lubricated disk in a heated oven.
Goker et al. (US 2022/0406336) discloses a cleaning cartridge that retains a cleaning tape that is thinner than what is required pursuant to current UCC specifications, but which also has sufficient surface roughness, or abrasivity, to enable effective cleaning of the tape head assembly (or “tape heads”) of the tape drives of such advanced LTO tape systems.
Ito et al. (US 2015/0228294) discloses an SMR method wherein in order to free a zone that includes an unused area that is impossible to write to, it is necessary to perform cleaning processing at regular intervals.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Peter Vincent Agustin whose telephone number is (571) 272-7567. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Thursday 8:30 am - 6:30 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Steven Lim can be reached on 571-270-1210. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Peter Vincent Agustin/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2688
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