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:
Jun. 29, 1999
Filed:
Jan. 17, 1997
Bruce James Kosbab, Colorado Springs, CO (US);
Fluke Corporation, Everett, WA (US);
Abstract
In a test instrument for testing local area networks (LANs), a method for identifying network device types on a LAN operating according to the TCP/IP protocol suite using passive monitoring is provided. A test instrument is coupled to the LAN to passively receive traffic in the form of frames that are being sent between the nodes on the LAN. The frames being sent may contain information that may be uniquely associated with specific types of network devices such as servers, routers, printers. A frame processor collects and extracts the frame information from the frames, including the message type and source IP address. The frame information is compared against sets of frame types, with each set of frame types uniquely associated with one of the network device types. The device types as detected are added to a station database.