Patent 7978569 was granted and assigned to Sony on July, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A focus control section first performs a reference focus control process in which a reference optical beam is focused on a reference layer of an optical disc according to the result of receiving a reference reflection optical beam, and then switches from the reference focus control process to an information focus control process in which an information optical beam is focused on a mark layer of the optical disc according to the result of receiving an information reflection optical beam.