OC Systems Awarded Patent for Software Debugging Technology

Fairfax, VA (January 27, 2003)—OC Systems, Inc. announced that it was awarded patent #6,490,721, "Software Debugging Method and Apparatus," from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. OC Systems' patent relates to a method for debugging software that allows modification of an application's behavior and collection of data relating to its execution without making changes to the program itself. This method of debugging has been incorporated into the company's flagship products, Aprobe and RootCause, which are used to help develop high quality, reliable software applications.

Using this method, new user actions are compiled and converted into a dynamically linkable module. The existing program is run under the control of a dynamic action linker. The dynamic action linker modifies the existing program by inserting the new actions in the memory image. The insertion is accomplished by automatically recognizing and modifying object code sequences in the existing program to call the new actions. Once the modification phase has finished modifying the existing program's memory image the new program is run without additional interruption, the new actions acting as if they were present in the original source code for the program.

"This patent demonstrates how truly unique our debugging technology is," said Oliver Cole, president of OC Systems. "There is no other way to gain this level of insight into and control over an application's execution without modifying the software. Our clients have achieved significant time and cost savings by implementing this method, and we look forward to finding new ways to take advantage of the technology."

About OC Systems
OC Systems, Inc. provides state-of-the-art software tools, development environments, and services that maximize software quality and application availability to companies that are developing and maintaining critical systems. Customers include Lockheed Martin, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Unisys, Sandia National Laboratories, TRW, UUNET, Cognos, Intel, SAIC, Veridian Engineering and the U.S. Army. Founded in 1983, the employee-owned company is based in Fairfax, Virginia. More information may be obtained at http://www.ocsystems.com.