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:
Apr. 13, 1999
Filed:
Mar. 29, 1996
Steve Allen Bade, Austin, TX (US);
Kyusun Chang, Austin, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
It is an object of the invention to minimize the efforts required to integrate a new communication media and network service into an operating system. These and other objects are accomplished by implementing the link control protocol layer as an operating system service multiplexing a set of network protocol connections to a set of communication media connections routing messages between respective connections. The LCP function is isolated by a set of network interfaces and a set of communication media interfaces. The invention allows the NCP and datagram support to be independent of the LCP support so long as the NCP and datagram implementations conform to the interfaces provided by the LCP operating system service that allow exchanges of state information. Also, the LCP operating system service allows the addition of new types of physical communication media support to the PPP subsystem of the present invention with knowledge only of the interfaces to the LCP layer and the framing characteristics of the communications medium. Further, because the LCP layer is now isolated by the interfaces, enhancements to the LCP layer become accessible to all communications media as well as to the NCP and datagram protocols without impact to the media or network layers.