The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 20, 2012
Filed:
May. 16, 2008
Jimmie Earl Dewitt, Jr., Georgetown, TX (US);
Frank Eliot Levine, Austin, TX (US);
Christopher Michael Richardson, Austin, TX (US);
Robert John Urquhart, Austin, TX (US);
Jimmie Earl DeWitt, Jr., Georgetown, TX (US);
Frank Eliot Levine, Austin, TX (US);
Christopher Michael Richardson, Austin, TX (US);
Robert John Urquhart, Austin, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
Hardware assist to autonomically patch code. The present invention provides hardware microcode to a new type of metadata to selectively identify instructions to be patched for specific performance optimization functions. The present invention also provides a new flag in the machine status register (MSR) to enable or disable a performance monitoring application or process to perform code-patching functions. If the code patching function is enabled, the application or process may patch code at run time by associating the metadata with the selected instructions. The metadata includes pointers pointing to the patch code block code. The program code may be patched autonomically without modifying original code.