Patent ID: 8208357

Claim:
An optical disc apparatus comprising: a driving unit configured to rotationally drive an optical disc; an optical pickup configured to record/reproduce a signal on/from the optical disc by emitting laser light and near-field light onto a signal recording surface of the optical disc; an optical pickup driving unit configured to set a distance between the optical pickup and the optical disc; a movement speed calculation unit configured to calculate a movement speed of a lens included in the optical pickup by differentiating a total reflection return light quantity of the laser light emitted onto the optical disc which is detected by the optical pickup, the total reflection return light quantity corresponding to light parallel to linear polarized reflected laser light from the optical disc; and a control unit configured to modify driving processing that is performed upon the optical pickup, or the lens included in the optical pickup, by the optical pickup driving unit on the basis of the movement speed calculated by the movement speed calculation unit, wherein the control unit is configured to compare the movement speed calculated by the movement speed calculation unit with a permissible speed set in advance, and to perform retreat processing moving the optical pickup, or the lens included in the optical pickup, apart from a surface of the optical disc to a new position when detecting that the movement speed exceeds the permissible speed, and wherein the optical pickup is further configured to record/reproduce the signal on/from the optical disc at the new position in response to the control unit performing the retreat processing.