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:
Feb. 24, 2026
Filed:
Sep. 20, 2022
British Telecommunications Public Limited Company, London, GB;
Michael Nilsson, London, GB;
Stephen Appleby, London, GB;
Timothy Stevens, London, GB;
Rory Turnbull, London, GB;
BRITISH TELECOMMUNICATIONS PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY, London, GB;
Abstract
A method of managing content delivery to a client device via a proxy is described. The proxy starts off by receiving content requests from the client device over unicast, and fulfils those requests by forwarding them to a content server, and receiving that content before forwarding onto the client device. The proxy then determines that it may be possible to join a multicast channel to more efficiently receive the required content. However, before joining the multicast channel, the proxy determines whether joining the multicast channel might result in the client device receiving content in a manner that would cause the client device to change the quality level of the content segments being requested. The proxy can do this by first obtaining segment requested by the client device from the unicast server over unicast. The proxy also requests timing information from the multicast server to determine a time at which the same segment will complete delivery over multicast. The proxy then delivers the segment received from the unicast server by the determined multicast delivery time.