Appeal No. 2002-0273
Application No. 09/078,933
how values of program variables depend on the inputs to the program. Col. 17, l. 66 -
col. 18, l. 7.
The TGS may also be applied as a symbolic interpreter to find inputs that will
cause a JAVA program to generate exceptions at runtime. The TGS Driver Program
224 reads the bytecodes, symbolically interprets them, and notifies the user of any
possible runtime exceptions. Col. 18, ll. 22-31. The TGS Driver Program may also test
the entire JAVA applet or application. Col. 18, ll. 56-67.
Kolawa describes the TGS Driver Program 224 in more detail at column 19, line
2 et seq. Initially, a random set of inputs are generated, and symbolic interpretation of
the JAVA program is performed. The Driver Program includes a Symbolic Virtual
Machine 234 (Fig. 17) for implementing symbolic interpretation, which in turn includes a
Symbolic Execution Engine 332 (Fig. 19). The Symbolic Execution Engine 332
performs a function similar to an interpreter, but instead of assigning real values to each
program variable, it assigns symbolic values to each program variable. The Execution
Engine 332 symbolically executes the JAVA program under test. Col. 21, l. 66 - col. 22,
li. 42.
Section 102 rejection of claims 1-32 over Kolawa
Appellant argues (Brief at 6-7) that Kolawa fails to disclose identifying a path
being executed, where, as required by instant claim 1, the path is one of the plurality of
paths in a routine. We disagree. The reference discloses symbolically interpreting and
-4-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007