Appeal No. 2001-2610
Application No. 09/052,247
Taking claim 1, as exemplary, the examiner points to column
8, lines 47-49, of Mahalingaiah as a teaching of determining if a
fetched instruction is an instruction-path-changing instruction
because the prefetch/predecode unit determines the branch target
of a line being predecoded. The examiner points to column 8,
lines 65-67, of the reference for a teaching of if the
instruction is not path-changing, then prefetching a next
sequential instruction, because the cited portion discloses a
branch direction being “taken,” in which subsequent instructions
are fetched from the target address of the branch instruction,
wherein the target address of a branch instruction is known to be
beyond the next sequential address.
Appellants contend that there is nothing in Mahalingaiah
that teaches determining if a fetched instruction is an
instruction-path-changing instruction in which an instruction-
path-changing instruction branches beyond the next sequential
instruction set. Further, contend appellants, the examiner has
identified no teaching in the reference disclosing that the
target branch of a branch instruction is known to be beyond the
next sequential address and there is no reason for the target
address of a branch instruction to necessarily be beyond the next
sequential address in a cache line [principal brief-page 6].
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