Appeal No. 2001-0653
Application 08/820,736
does not have the benefit of a sample input data, so it must make
its best guess as to where the program hot spots are." As
indicated in the second sentence, the code optimizations
described in Chapter 10 of Aho are not based on profile
information because this is generally not available. However,
Aho reasonably suggests to one of ordinary skill in the compiler
art to concentrate the optimization techniques on heavily
traveled regions of a program as determined by a profiler. In
any case, it is admitted that optimizing compilers which use
profile information were known in the computer art (spec. at 11,
lines 8-10: "Compilers can also automatically read in profile
information during an optimization phase to create an optimized
version of the computer program."). However, none of Profiler,
Aho, or the admitted prior art discloses or suggests determining
if existing profile information is valid. The fact that
compilers may determine if other information is valid does not
suggest the obviousness of this limitation. We conclude that the
examiner has failed to establish a prima facie case of
obviousness with respect to the claims of Group 3. The rejection
of claims 5-7, 13-17, 23, 24, 29, 30, 35, 36, and 39 is reversed.
Group 4 - Claims 8-10, 25, 26, and 37
The claims in this group all depend on claims in Group 3 and
define how the optimization mechanism determines validity. For
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