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:
Aug. 28, 1990
Filed:
Apr. 19, 1989
Andrew D Franklin, Boulder, CO (US);
Robert J Gallegos, Westminster, CO (US);
American Telephone and Telegraph Company, Murray Hill, NJ (US);
Abstract
In a packet network, each data packet that is transported through the network to a destination node is assigned one of 2**N priority levels based on the type of information contained in the data packet. A data packet containing system control information is assigned the highest priority level. A data packet containing, for example, user information, is assigned a lower priority level. In addition, each priority level is associated with a respective 'watermark' threshold. When a data packet arrives at a network node, the node compares the packet's associated watermark threshold with the number of data words currently stored in a common memory. The node rejects the packet if the watermark threshold is found to be less than that number to reserve space in the memory for data packets of higher priority. Otherwise, the data packet is stored in the common memory.