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:
Dec. 09, 1997
Filed:
Nov. 18, 1992
George A Kalwitz, Costa Mesa, CA (US);
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
Method and apparatus by which an interactive network board can determine which of plural frame packet types is currently being used for LAN communication on a local area network. A prescanning software module simultaneously binds itself through a link support layer to each of the plural frame packet types and then deactivates itself. The LAN communication network is then monitored for broadcast traffic so as to capture a LAN frame packet, whereupon the link support layer provides data groups for the captured frame packet, each of the data groups corresponding to a different one of the plural frame packet types. The prescanner is reactivated so as to prescan each data group for a predetermined IPX header, and determines the frame packet type in correspondence to the data group having the predetermined IPX header. The prescanner is operative in a multiprotocol network environment in which two different LAN operating systems having respectively different operating protocols, such as Novell-compatible and UNIX-compatible operating systems, both carry on LAN communication on a single network bus. In this case, the prescanner repeats operations for each of the different operating protocols.