Appeal No. 1999-0495
Application No. 08/752,729
rejection, Smith fails to disclose the first step of claim 19: "identifying each instruction to
be executed with an identification which is independent of an execution order."
We agree with appellants that the identification accorded by the "boosting bit," as
disclosed by Smith, cannot fairly be considered "independent of an execution order."
We may agree with the examiner (Answer at 6) that the bit does not necessarily
indicate the actual order of execution in the system. However, whether or not the bit is
set "depends upon the outcome of the next conditional branch." Smith at 347, col. 1, ll.
7-8. "Boosted instructions are conditionally committed upon the result of later branch
instructions." Id. at 344, col. 2, ll. 30-31. Since the identifier is set upon consideration
of branch instructions occurring later in execution, the identification is not "independent"
of an execution order.
Additionally, the rejection over Smith in view of Kodama is unclear. The
statement of the rejection, set forth on pages 3 and 4 of the Answer, purportedly
corrects a typographic error present in the Final Rejection. (See Answer at 7.)
However, in the Answer, Smith is relied upon as teaching "grouping instructions into a
plurality of sets" and identifying each instruction. Further, "Kodama taught (e.g. see figs
1-6) grouping instructions into a plurality of sets according to identification (7) and
reordering the instructions in the sets to accelerate execution (5a, 6a)." (Answer at 4.)
Instant claim 19 requires "grouping instructions into a plurality of sets according to said
identification." Whatever "identification" might be pointed out in Kodama, the
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