Patent ID: 7992057

Claim:
A method for managing a defective area on a recording medium of writable once type, the recording medium having a recording layer including a lead-in area, a data area and a lead-out area, the data area including a spare area being used for a replacement writing operation, the method comprising: detecting an existence of a defective area within the data area of the recording medium; replacing the defective area with a replacement area in the spare area if the defective area is detected; writing, in at least one defect management area within the spare area, defect management information which cumulatively includes defect list information associated with the detected defective area and any previous defect list information previously written in the recording medium, the defect management area being allocated to the spare area when a plurality of defect management areas are provided; and writing positional information onto the defect management area, the positional information including information for indicating a position of a latest defect management information written in the defect management area.