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:
Nov. 15, 1994
Filed:
Nov. 16, 1992
Jeffrey H Derby, Chapel Hill, NC (US);
Willibald A Doeringer, Langnau, CH;
John E Drake, Jr, Pittsboro, NC (US);
Douglas H Dykeman, Rueschlikon, CH;
Liang Li, Chapel Hill, NC (US);
Marcia L Peters, Pittsboro, NC (US);
Haldon J Sandick, Durham, NC (US);
Ken Van Vu, Cary, NC (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
Access agents in nodes at the LAN/WAN interface are formed into a group of access agents so that the access agents may be managed by the WAN as a group. The group must maintain group operation integrity in that if communications between agents in the group are broken, the access agents will coalesce into subgroups and continue performing communication jobs as a group activity. Each of the access agents contains a finite state machine to perform the tasks of group formation and maintenance. The formation of interconnected access agents into a group is accomplished by one access agent being identified as a group leader. All other access agents communicating with the group leader within the LAN may then join the group. The maintenance of group activity integrity is accomplished by detecting a break in group communication integrity and thereafter reforming the group into multiple smaller groups. The maintenance of group operation integrity also includes the merger of small groups into a large group when a bridge is added between LAN segments.