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:
Sep. 07, 1999
Filed:
May. 06, 1997
G Stodel Friedman, Acton, MA (US);
David J Husak, Windham, MA (US);
Stephen L Van Seters, Stow, MA (US);
Edward A Heiner, Jr, Londonderry, NH (US);
3Com Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus are disclosed which permit multipoint trunking among a plurality of network devices connected by a trunk comprising at least two physical links. A trunk control message protocol (TCMP) is described which assures that message traffic may be delivered to the respective devices over the individual links of the trunk prior to inclusion of the respective links as active links in the trunk. The trunk acts as a single network port for each of the devices utilizing the trunk and is layered over a plurality of media access control (MAC) ports which interface to the respective links. The disclosed trunking technique and apparatus permit the bandwidth of the trunk to be increased in increments through the addition of links to the trunk.